Radiology Without Borders: Identifying Global Reach of Radiology Social Media in Africa

Abstract

ObjectiveTo examine our website and social media audience data to define the number of African users and review the effects of COVID-19 on our viewership from Africa, and look ahead to potential opportunities. MethodsGoogle Analytics was used to investigate the number of CTisus.com users from Africa across a three-year period: April 2018-March 2019, April 2019-March 2020, and April 2020-March 2021. The percent difference between 18/19 – 19/20 and 19/20 – 20/21 was identified. Each country was categorized into North, South, East, West, or Central Africa, based on the United Nations Statistical Division, and the percent difference was calculated for all five regions. The number of followers of our YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter channels in each African country was also analyzed, again classifying each country into regions. ResultsForty-six of the fifty-four countries in Africa, and all four territories, accessed CTisus.com between April 2018 to March 2021. Northern Africa represented 49.87% of our website visits from all African countries. Southern Africa constituted 18.84% of our traffic and Eastern Africa 18.60%, while Western and Central Africa provided 11.90% and 0.79%, respectively. We found a 27% increase in website traffic from Africa between a non-COVID year and a complete pandemic year. Facebook statistics revealed that 20,782 likes to our page came from Africa, and 20,987 of our followers. Similarly, 15,391 of our YouTube views and 728 of our Twitter followers came from Africa. ConclusionWe have been successful in achieving a 27% increase in website traffic from Africa to our radiology social media offerings. This increase since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is encouraging, especially when noting that we do not have any paid advertising. We look forward to reaching a larger African audience to deliver radiology education in the future.