ODs on Facebook: The Online Community Shaping the Future of Optometry with Dr. Alan Glazier

·56 min·5 clips

Dr. Alan Glazier built the largest optometry Facebook group with 47,000 members, but it started from a napkin sketch after a bad online experience.

Eugene Schatzman hosts Dr. Alan Glazier, founder of ODs on Facebook, which has over 47,000 members and generates millions of comments annually. Glazier describes his origin story, starting from a negative experience in an earlier optometry forum around 2003-2007 where hateful comments and lack of moderation marginalized users. In response, he founded ODs on Facebook in 2011 with guidelines written on a napkin, focusing on no hurtful comments, no partisan politics, and high-quality clinical and practice management content. The group accidentally grew from 40 to 120 members in three hours, committing him to moderation. Glazier emphasizes strict admin enforcement, warning and removing members who violate rules to prevent devolution. He shares statistics: 83% of members are ODs or optometry students, with 6,000 international ODs, and about 33,000 daily visitors. The conversation covers how the group has raised over $150,000 for charitable causes like practice recovery after disasters and scope expansion efforts. Glazier notes a post-COVID shift in content from 65% practice management to 65% clinical, partly due to his encouragement of image-based posts. They discuss current trends members are talking about, including AI, electronic health records, and optical sales. Glazier offers his perspective on AI, advising to identify practice constraints before applying AI and warning about centralized AI control. He recommends the business book 'The Goal' by Eliyahu Goldratt for process improvement. In the latter part, Glazier advises optometrists on using social media for practice growth, suggesting topical Facebook groups for local engagement over SEO-driven strategies. He critiques platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn for local business, while noting Instagram's visual appeal for younger demographics. The episode concludes with Glazier's thoughts on future social media challenges, such as bot infiltration and the potential rise of augmented reality platforms.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how optometry's largest social media community turns conversation into professional action.

This Power Hour episode looks at ODs on Facebook as more than a busy professional forum. Through Dr. Alan Glazier's account of founding and running the group, it shows how a large optometry community keeps conversation practical, tracks the profession's mood around technology,…

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Step inside ODs on Facebook, where a 47,000-plus optometry community turns daily conversation into a read on the profession.

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