While social media has long been a core marketing channel for hospitals and health systems to reach patients, recruit staff and build brand recognition, follower counts vary widely. A system that dominates LinkedIn may be nearly invisible on Instagram, while a single-site children’s hospital can outperform multistate systems on TikTok.
Becker’s audited follower and subscriber counts across LinkedIn, X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for major U.S. hospitals and health systems in June 2026. All figures reflect direct platform reads via an authenticated browser session.
1. Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): 1.65 million followers
2. Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, Calif.): 1 million followers
3. Cleveland Clinic: 915,000 followers
4. HCA Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.): 870,000 followers
5. Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore): 511,000 followers
Note: Kaiser Permanente and HCA Healthcare rank near the top, driven largely by workforce size, with their followings skewing heavily toward employees and job seekers rather than patients.
X (formerly Twitter)
1. Mayo Clinic: 1.8 million followers
2. Cleveland Clinic: 1.7 million followers
3. Johns Hopkins Medicine: 613,000 followers
4. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, Tenn.): 406,200 followers
5. Stanford (Calif.) Medicine: 369,400 followers
Note: Most large health systems have shifted social investment away from X in recent years.
1. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: 637,000 followers
2. Mayo Clinic: 504,000 followers
3. Cleveland Clinic: 259,000 followers
4. Johns Hopkins Medicine: 195,000 followers
5. Boston Children’s Hospital: 99,000 followers
Note: Children’s hospitals as a category over-index on Instagram relative to their size, reflecting fundraising and donor engagement models built around patient stories.
TikTok
1. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: 780,100 followers
2. Mayo Clinic: 167,300 followers
3. Cleveland Clinic: 92,000 followers
4. Northwestern Medicine (Chicago): 74,700 followers
5. Houston Methodist: 69,800 followers
Note: St. Jude’s TikTok following dwarfs every other health system by a factor of four times or more, driven by celebrity fundraising campaigns and patient storytelling.
YouTube
1. Mayo Clinic: 1.25 million subscribers
2. Cleveland Clinic: 739,000 subscribers
3. UCLA Health (Los Angeles): 578,000 subscribers
4. Johns Hopkins Medicine: 490,000 subscribers
5. Cincinnati Children’s: 254,000 subscribers
Note: Mayo Clinic was the first health system to reach 1 million YouTube subscribers.
Editor’s note: This is not an exhaustive list, and figures reflect a June 2026 point-in-time audit. Follower and subscriber counts change frequently. If your hospital or health system would like to share updated figures, please reach out to gbruce@beckershealthcare.com.
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