How to cite a social media post in BMJ
A post from Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, or a similar network. The BMJ's modified Vancouver style.
Quick answer
To cite a social media post in BMJ, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Nosek, B.. Today's key finding on reproducibility. Twitter. 2024. https://twitter.com/BrianNosek/status/example
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for BMJ. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
Official source
BMJ is defined and maintained by the The BMJ. When a formatting rule is ambiguous, their official guidance is the authoritative reference. DEEPNOTIS renders BMJ from the same canonical CSL definition.
What you need
For a social media post, BMJ expects these fields at minimum:
- Author (handle or display name)
- Full date
- Text of the post or description
- Platform name
- URL
Common mistakes
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026