Social media for med spas, with a clinician in the loop

The caption can name a treatment you offer and describe, in careful language, what the visit is. It should not promise an outcome: gone, erased, permanent, painless, safe for everyone, or a number of years younger. Those sentences are how a pretty feed becomes a complaint, a platform rejection, or a problem with a regulator. Superlatives such as best, safest, and only are in the same bin unless a clinician can point at a source they are willing to defend.

Risk belongs in the conversation, not as a footnote nobody can read. If a treatment has downtime, say there is downtime instead of "lunchtime" when that is not true for the way you perform it. If results vary, the post should not crop the sentence out because it hurts the hook. We would rather have a dull true caption than a sharp one the medical director has to walk back in the consult room.

This page is not medical advice and it is not legal advice. What you may say about a device, a drug, or a procedure depends on who is performing it, the labeling, and the rules that apply to your practice. We draft. A clinician who is responsible for the practice decides what ships. If that person is not available to review, the post waits.

A before and after pair is a patient's body used as an ad. Consent should be specific: which treatment, which platforms, whether the face is identifiable, and how long you may leave it up. Consent for the chart is not consent for Instagram. A signature that says "marketing" in the general intake packet is a weak basis for a close crop of a face. We will ask you to use a consent that names the use.

The pair should be the same person, the same angle, lighting that does not invent a result, and a timeframe that is honest. Makeup, expression, and weight change can counterfeit a treatment result. If those changed, do not present the pair as the treatment alone. Cropping out a scar you did not treat, or showing only the side that responded, is the same problem in a quieter form.

Patients can withdraw consent. You need a way to find the post and take it down without arguing. Minors are not a before and after strategy. Sensitive anatomy needs a higher bar than a facial, and some of it should not be on a public feed at all even with a signature. When we are unsure, we leave it out. The consult room can show a photo the public feed should not.

Fake means the result in the image is not a result you produced on that person. Filters that reshape a jaw, smooth skin beyond the treatment, or change body contours are fake for this purpose. So are AI generated afters, stock patients, another clinic's photos, and influencer images you repost as if the work were done in your chair. A disclaimer in a tiny font does not repair that. We will not publish them.

Borrowed celebrity or influencer faces are a rights problem and a truth problem. You do not have their consent, and you did not treat them. "Results like this" under someone else's photo is the sentence we will delete. If a patient wants to post their own photo and tag you, that is their post. Reposting it still needs a yes, and it still needs to be true.

An example, labelled as an example: a practice wants to show a toxin result. They use a consented patient, two photos in the same room, no smoothing filter, a caption that names the product class without promising a duration, and the medical director signs off before it is scheduled. A second idea, an AI image of a sharper jawline, gets declined. That example is about the line. It is not a report of consults booked.

• No outcome guarantees, no erased, no painless, no permanent
• Consent that names the platform, separate from the chart intake
• Same person, honest light, no filter that creates the result
• No AI afters, stock patients, or another clinic's photos
• A clinician signs off before scheduling, especially when policies move

Meta, TikTok, and the other large platforms revise medical and cosmetic advertising rules, and they enforce them unevenly. A format that ran last quarter can be the one that restricts the account this quarter. Before and after layouts, targeting, and words like weight, injection, and prescription are common places the rules tighten. We watch for changes. We do not treat a screenshot of a policy as permanent, and we do not promise an account will stay in good standing.

Because the rules and the clinical facts both move, a clinician reviews posts that mention a treatment, a device, a drug, or an outcome. Marketing review is not a substitute. The reviewer should be someone who can be responsible for the claim, not a friend who "knows the brand". If the review note is "make it pop", we send it back. Pop is not a clinical standard.

Paid social is a different system from organic posts, with its own special ad categories and restrictions. We will not boost a before and after, or a treatment claim, just because the organic post was approved by the platform's silent default. If you want paid distribution, that is scoped separately, and the same clinician still reads it. Organic reach is not a workaround for a claim you cannot defend.

The consult should not have to undo the feed. If the post implies one session, the coordinator should not have to explain a series. If the post shows a price, it is a price you will honor for what the image actually depicts, or you do not post the price. Financing, if mentioned, uses the partner's real terms, not "as low as" with the assumption hidden. The booking link should reach a person or a request the front desk can answer, not a cart for a prescription product you cannot sell that way.

Education posts are welcome when they are dull and accurate: who is not a candidate, what downtime looks like in your practice, what a consult costs if it is not free. Those posts filter the wrong inquiries before they use a coordinator's afternoon. A feed made only of outcomes attracts people who want the photo, including people you should not treat. Saying no in public, calmly, is part of the account.

We do not guarantee leads, booked consults, or aesthetic results. We will keep the claims inside what your clinician will sign, keep the photos inside consent, and keep fake transformations out. If the practice does not have a reviewer with time, the honest recommendation is to post less, not to post unsupervised. Quiet and accurate beats a calendar full of lines nobody will defend.