The Attention Landscape · emerging evidence
Where a Med-Spa's Buyer Actually Looks: Social-Proof-First Discovery in Aesthetics
A med-spa's marketing conversation defaults to search: rank higher, run more ads, get more calls. The industry's own patient-facing research says the buyer looks somewhere else first. In the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery's 2023 consumer survey, social platforms occupied the top three "digital resource" slots patients used when choosing a skin-health provider; 73% of respondents followed the social account of a provider they were considering, and 84% said review sites influenced their choice. The 2025 wave shifted the balance further: about half said a provider's social presence affects booking, but 94% said review sites play a role, reviews now outweighing social influence. Both figures come from an industry-association survey whose full methodology is not independently disclosed, so they are read here as emerging, not settled. What both waves agree on is a buyer who checks social proof and reviews before, or instead of, running a generic search.
The channel patients actually use, not the one marketing plans assume
Most med-spa marketing conversations start from a search-first assumption: improve rankings, run paid search, capture the click. The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery's own consumer research, run directly with the patients these practices are trying to reach, points somewhere else first.
The finding is not that search does not matter. It is that for this specific, high-consideration category, social presence and third-party reviews appear to carry more weight in the actual choice of provider than the marketing conversation typically assumes, and the gap between assumption and evidence is where budget is most likely being misallocated.
The 2023 baseline: social in the top three, reviews close behind
In ASDS's 2023 consumer survey, social platforms occupied the top three "digital resource" slots patients reported using when making a skin-health decision. 73% of respondents said they followed the social account of a provider they were seeing or considering, a substantial majority actively tracking a specific provider's own content rather than browsing anonymously.
Alongside that, 84% of respondents said rate and review sites influenced their choice of provider. Together, the two figures describe a buyer doing two things before booking: watching the provider directly through social content, and cross-checking that impression against independent reviews.
The 2025 shift: reviews now outweigh social
The 2025 wave of the same ASDS survey shows the balance between the two signals moving. About half of respondents said a provider's social presence affects their booking decision, a meaningfully lower share than the 73% who reported following provider accounts in 2023. Review-site influence moved the other way, to 94% of respondents saying review sites play a role.
Read across the two waves, reviews have gone from running close behind social influence to running well ahead of it. That is a directional finding worth taking seriously for budget planning, even before the underlying methodology is fully verified: whichever way the exact numbers move in future waves, review-site presence has not been the weaker of the two signals in either reading.
What ASDS does and does not disclose
ASDS is a professional trade association for dermatologic surgeons, and its consumer surveys are reported through press releases and trade coverage rather than a fully disclosed, independently reviewable methodology document. Sample size, sampling frame, and exact question wording were not independently verifiable in the research behind this piece.
That does not make the figures false, but it does mean they should be read as directionally indicative, tiered emerging, rather than cited externally as precise, settled statistics. A med-spa building a specific budget allocation on these exact percentages should treat that as a starting hypothesis to validate against its own patient data, or pull the full primary ASDS report, rather than a number to plan around unquestioned.
Why aesthetics skews this way when other verticals do not
The pattern makes sense against the nature of the purchase. An aesthetic treatment, an injectable, a laser procedure, a body treatment, carries real physical and financial risk, closer to what search engines themselves classify as a sensitive, high-stakes category than to a low-consideration local purchase. A buyer facing that kind of risk has more reason to seek out corroborating evidence, a provider's own track record shown through social content, and independent patient reviews, before acting on a search result alone.
That is a qualitative, not a directly evidenced, explanation for the pattern, offered here as reasoning rather than a cited finding. It is consistent with why other high-consideration verticals also lean on trust signals, even though the specific mix differs: a home-services buyer leans on speed of response over social proof, a legal buyer's bottleneck sits at firm response rather than discovery at all. Aesthetics is simply the vertical, among those studied, where social presence and reviews weigh most heavily and most directly against the booking decision itself.
What this changes for a med-spa's marketing spend
The practical implication is a reallocation, not an abandonment, of search spend. Claiming, verifying, and actively managing review-site presence deserves priority alongside generic keyword spend, given that 84% and 94% of respondents across the two survey waves said reviews influenced their choice.
Provider-level social presence, the accounts patients actually follow before booking, deserves comparable priority: authentic before-and-after content, credential visibility, and a consistent posting practice tied to the specific provider a patient will see, not only the practice's brand account. Generic search visibility still matters as the entry point for some buyers, but the evidence says it is not where trust, and therefore the booking decision, is actually being decided for this category.
What would resolve the uncertainty
A full read of ASDS's underlying methodology, sample size, sampling frame, and exact question wording, would let these figures move from emerging to established. Short of that, a med-spa's own first-party data, which review platforms and which social touchpoints its actual booked patients report consulting before booking, is the most direct way to validate whether the national pattern holds for its specific patient base.
Until either of those exists, the current reading stands: two independent survey waves, three years apart, from the same industry body, both point to social proof and reviews outweighing generic search in this category. That is a real, convergent signal. It is not yet a number to guarantee a specific return against.
The evidence
Key findings, with their sources
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In ASDS's 2023 consumer survey, social platforms occupied the top three "digital resource" slots for skin-health decisions, and 73% of consumers followed the social account of a provider they were seeing or considering.
emerging American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, Consumer Survey on Cosmetic Dermatologic Procedures, 2023 (press-release summary; underlying sample and methodology not independently verified).
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84% of respondents in the 2023 ASDS survey said rate and review sites influenced their choice of provider.
emerging American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, Consumer Survey on Cosmetic Dermatologic Procedures, 2023.
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In the 2025 wave of the same survey, about half of respondents said a provider's social presence affects booking decisions, while 94% said review sites play a role, reviews outweighing social influence in the most recent reading.
emerging American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, Consumer Survey on Cosmetic Dermatologic Procedures, 2025.
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Across verticals generally, 85% of consumers use Google for reviews and 74% consult two or more review platforms before deciding, a cross-vertical review-behavior baseline.
established BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2025 (disclosed methodology, 1,026 US adults, run annually since 2010).
Reference
Glossary
- Digital resource
- ASDS's survey term for a specific online source, such as a social platform or a review site, that a patient reports consulting when making a skin-health decision.
- A pattern in which a buyer checks third-party social validation, provider accounts, patient reviews, before or instead of running a generic search, most pronounced in this dataset within aesthetics.
- Credence good
- A purchase whose quality is difficult for the buyer to verify even after receiving it, which raises reliance on third-party trust signals such as reviews and credentials. Aesthetic and medical treatments are commonly discussed in this category.
- Industry-association survey
- Research commissioned or run by a professional trade body about its own field. Useful and often the only available data, but read with the caveat that methodology disclosure is frequently thinner than an independent academic study.
Straight answers
Frequently asked questions
Do med-spa patients look at social media before booking?
The available evidence says yes, directionally. ASDS's 2023 and 2025 consumer surveys both found social platforms and provider accounts play a role in patient decisions, though the exact percentages are industry-survey figures, not independently verified, so they should be read as emerging, not settled.
Do reviews or social media matter more for choosing a med-spa?
The 2025 wave of ASDS's survey suggests reviews now outweigh social presence, 94% versus about half, a shift from 2023 when social influence (73% followed a provider's account) ran closer to review influence (84%).
Is this data reliable enough to plan a full marketing budget around?
It is emerging-tier: industry-association-sourced, with methodology not fully disclosed in available coverage. It is directionally useful for prioritizing review and social-proof investment, but should be validated against a specific practice's own patient data before a full budget is built on the exact percentages.
Should a med-spa still invest in search visibility?
Yes, search remains an entry point for some buyers. The evidence here says trust signals, reviews and provider social proof, are what appear to convert consideration into a booking in this category, so they deserve priority alongside, not instead of, search visibility.
Provenance
Sources
- American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, "Consumer Survey on Cosmetic Dermatologic Procedures", 2023 and 2025 waves (press releases summarizing survey; underlying sample and methodology not independently verified) (emerging)
- BrightLocal, "Local Consumer Review Survey 2025" (disclosed methodology, 1,026 US adults, run annually since 2010) (established)
Every figure above is attributed to a real, dated source and tagged with its evidence tier. Where a claim could not be verified to a primary source, it is not stated as fact.