To our knowledge, this is the first report with a detailed analysis of SoMe content from German radiotherapy facilities. The results provide an overview of the social media presence and engagement of German radiotherapy institutions, focusing on platform activity, follower distribution, posting frequency, and content prioritization. The analysis examines variations between larger hospitals and smaller practices, highlighting key trends in platform preference and communication strategies.

Overall, around a quarter of all listed institutions have a SoMe account according to our analysis. In terms of the postings measured, larger facilities, especially university hospitals, are more active than smaller radiotherapy facilities. However, even among the larger facilities, we observed significant differences in the frequency of posts across the various institutions. Some institutions post nearly twice a day, while others share content only once a month at most. These variations can be attributed to several factors, and one important aspect is the level of investment in dedicated social media management.

Certain institutions have recognized the importance of a strategic, consistent social media presence and have hired personnel specifically for this purpose. These social media managers are tasked with generating content ideas, implementing them, and regularly posting on the institution’s social media accounts. This approach is part of a comprehensive social media strategy that ensures a professional and coherent online presence, with content often planned and scheduled in advance.

In contrast, other institutions take a more flexible approach, where the responsibility for social media activity is shared among various staff members. Here, social media posts are often created during working hours by individuals who may not have a specific mandate for social media management. In some cases, departmental heads or senior staff post on an ad hoc basis, whenever they have time or/and something of value to post and share. This less structured approach can result in sporadic posting activity, with less consistency in terms of frequency and content.

These differences in strategy are significant because they impact the visibility and overall activity of institutional social media accounts. While institutions with dedicated social media teams may have a more active and structured presence, those relying on individuals to handle social media may appear less engaged, even though the staff members themselves may be highly active online through personal accounts or other means.

Our key findings from the analysis presented are as follows:

Of all analyzed platforms, LinkedIn shows the highest institutional presence and engagement, while X ranks lowest in both absolute and relative metrics.

Concerning the frequency of posts, the Westdeutsches Protonentherapiezentrum Essen (WPE) is the most active institution, followed by the Klinik für Strahlentherapie Leipzig.

Content categories: the majority of posts focus on events & announcements, followed by health awareness (19%), scientific studies (16%), and team news (15%), while job postings (8%) and clinical updates (8%) are less prominent.

Content distribution across platforms: LinkedIn dominates nearly all content categories, including job announcements, scientific studies, and team news. Other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have niche roles, with LinkedIn taking the lead for professional and research-driven content, at least during the observation period.

Follower and posting activity: Instagram has the largest follower share (46%), but LinkedIn remains the most active platform, accounting for 86% of posts.

There is at least one notable study that has taken a similar approach, but it did not exclusively examine the activity of institutional accounts. The study by Prabhu et al. from 2021 showed that there had been a recent significant growth of SoMe activity [10]. They analyzed all public tweets with the hashtag #radonc in the period 2014–2019. As a result, they found an increase from 23 to 119 countries from which tweets were made. The most frequent posts came from the USA, the UK, and Spain. They recorded an annual growth rate in Twitter/X users of 70.5%, with doctors responsible for the most tweets, at 46.9%. Looking at the annual number of tweets by origin, doctors and scientists are in the top two positions, but healthcare providers such as hospitals and medical practices (health care providers) also showed significant annual growth rates of 92.4% on average.

There have already been some analyses of the use of SoMe by health care professionals, which have revealed insights into user behavior. In a survey on the topic of SoMe use by radiation oncologists (RO) and physicists within the scope of the Catalan-Occitan Oncology Group (GOCO) for example, it was shown that it is quite common for doctors and physicians to change their clinical practice following information in SoMe (28%) [1]. The platforms Instagram (n = 116) and Facebook (n = 107) were primarily used, Twitter less frequently (n = 77).

In a further survey among a group of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), it was reported that most users are passive (38.3%), and only 19% actively post or share content [2]. On average, users spent around 5 h per week on SoMe. When asked about the reasons for using SoMe, interest in new publications (66%) and networking (48.5%) were cited.

While the German institutional accounts predominantly post information on events and announcements in our analysis, the topics “health awareness” and “scientific studies” are lagging behind in second and third place, respectively. In the work by Prabhu et al. discussed above, the top topic in the 2014–2016 period was “promotion of #radonc community,” which then slipped to seventh place in the following years.

In the more recent time period from 2017 to 2019, the topics “content around radiation” and “general discussions and content” were ranked first and second. However, it should be noted that the authors analyzed all tweets worldwide, primarily from individuals, whereby it is obvious that institutional accounts are more likely to post job advertisements, team news, or further promotion-related topics.

This study focused exclusively on institutional social media accounts to evaluate how radiotherapy institutions use these platforms for professional communication. By analyzing official profiles—typically used to share scientific achievements, institutional news, and events—we aimed to gain insight into the strategies institutions employ to maintain a professional digital presence. While educational content is sometimes initiated by individual professionals, personal accounts often cover broader topics beyond the scope of institutional communication.

However, the study does have several limitations. First, the 6‑month observation period provides only a snapshot, potentially missing long-term trends or seasonal variations. Second, our approach was primarily descriptive, limiting the ability to draw causal conclusions. Third, some institutions may have been unintentionally excluded due to limitations in our search criteria. Lastly, the study focused on quantitative metrics (e.g., number of posts and followers), without analyzing qualitative engagement, such as comments or interactions, which could offer deeper insight into audience engagement and impact.