Alexis Kestler
In today‘s digitally-driven healthcare landscape, influencer marketing has become an extremely effective strategy for healthcare organizations looking to expand their reach, improve engagement, and drive real results.
This comprehensive guide will explore everything brands need to know about running successful healthcare influencer campaigns in 2023.
What is Healthcare Influencer Marketing?
Healthcare influencer marketing involves collaborating with influential medical and health figures on social media to promote your healthcare brand and engage patients.
These influencers leverage their subject matter expertise and engaged social followings to educate audiences and organically raise awareness through recommendations.
According to recent research, the pharmaceutical industry increased their investment in healthcare influencer marketing by 80% in 2021, indicating it‘s growing popularity and effectiveness.
Brands team up with doctors, nurses, medical professionals, patients, and health advocates who create health-related content on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and more.
Why Consider Influencer Marketing For Healthcare Brands?
There are many unique benefits that make influencer marketing well-suited for healthcare brands:
Increased Trust and Credibility
In the heavily regulated healthcare industry, trust and credibility are essential. Healthcare influencers who provide science-based medical advice build strong relationships with followers over time, establishing themselves as trusted resources on health topics.
Successful healthcare influencer marketing campaigns take advantage of this trust while lending credibility to your healthcare brand.
Improved Audience Targeting
Influencers allow brands to tap into specific niche patient audiences that are highly targeted and already engaged with health content.
Whether you want to reach expectant mothers, fitness enthusiasts, or diabetes patients, there are micro-influencers who cater content specifically for these communities.
Segmenting by interest area or health condition enables precise targeting for medical brands.
Boost Brand Awareness and Favorability
Two-thirds of consumers rely on social media to guide healthcare decisions, meaning platforms like Instagram and TikTok are key to raising awareness.
Influencer endorsements expose your healthcare brand to engaged follower bases, rapidly expanding reach and building brand familiarity.
81% of consumers said they are likely to make a purchase based on an influencer‘s recommendation indicating the potential to positively shift brand perceptions.
Higher Engagement Rates and Shareability
Compared to branded content directly from healthcare companies, followers view influencer content as more authentic, shareable and engaging.
In one medical aesthetics campaign example, partnering with nano-influencers drove 25X higher engagement rates at only 10% of the cost versus using just single traditional celebrity sponsorships.
Easier Influencer Marketing Optimization
With detailed platform analytics and metrics, healthcare brands can track influencer campaign performance and iterate based on successes. Identifying top performing content allows you to double down on what resonates most with your target patients.
6 Steps to Launch Successful Healthcare Influencer Campaigns
Ready to leverage the power of healthcare influencer marketing? Here are 6 steps to launch effective and compliant influencer campaigns:
1. Establish Your Goals and KPIs
Before reaching out to influencers, brands need to determine their underlying campaign goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) used to quantify success.
Outlining goals and KPIs gives direction to your messaging and enables proper measurement after the fact to calculate campaign ROI.
Relevant healthcare influencer marketing metrics include:
- Content views
- Shares and reposts
- Links clicks
- Website visitors
- Audiences reached
- Brand awareness lift
Performance benchmarks may vary based on factors like industry, content type, campaign length and platform channel.
2. Audit Compliance Considerations and Regulations
The healthcare industry operates under complex regulations when it comes to medical claims and partnerships with influencers.
It‘s critical that legal and compliance teams review proposed influencer agreements, messaging, and content to limit risks and ensure adherence.
Key compliance aspects cover platform disclosure requirements, compensation structures, incentive programs, content approval processes, legal social media policy and more.
Consult the FTC endorsement guide and FDA‘s best practices for safer healthcare influencer programs.
3. Connect with Niche Medical Influencers
A common influencer marketing mistake involves choosing influencer partners based solely on follower count rather than relevant reach and resonance.
The best healthcare influencers have credibility rooted in lived patient experiences, medical training or health research rather than fame alone.
Prioritize working with "micro-influencers" under 100k followers with high engagement and topic expertise over broad celebrity names. Consider specialties like:
- Oncologists discussing cancer care and treatment
- Registered dieticians covering healthy eating lifestyles
- Entrepreneurs sharing mental wellness advice
Leverage influencer platforms to identify and vet health influencers tailored to your niche.
Evaluate not just quantitative stats but also qualitative indicators through content analysis assessing producitivity, consistency, creativity and tone.
4. Develop Captivating Healthcare Content
Unlike interruptive healthcare ads, influencer content feels organic and genuinely useful for audiences.
When ideating influencer content, emphasize educational value-add over pure promotional messaging. Think "help first, sell second".
Aim for an authentic combination of:
- Interesting health-related facts
- Lifestyle tips and best practices
- Overviews of health conditions
- Commentary on medical news
Video content tends to drive the highest engagement across leading platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Youtube.
Encourage influencers to infuse their unique personalities and creative expression into posts through humour, personal anecdotes and rich visual media.
5. Track Performance Through Platform Analytics
Monitoring analytics provides tangible performance indicators to gauge campaign effectiveness and optimize future efforts.
Each platform offers its own analytics suite for gleaning campaign insights:
- Instagram: Analyze interactions, reach, clicks, impressions and saves.
- TikTok: Gain view performance benchmarks and audience segmentation data.
- YouTube: Review view velocity, traffic sources, popular content, demographics and more.
Campaign management tools like Iconosquare and HypeAuditor also enable aggregated cross-channel reporting.
6. Assess Influencer Sentiment and Feedback
Look beyond vanity metrics alone to gather qualitative campaign learnings directly from influencers themselves through closing interviews.
Discuss what messaging resonated most with their followers, ideas for improving future content, and viability of extended partnerships through longer term contracts.
Continuous influencer feedback channels ensure brands keep campaigns tailored to ever-evolving platform algorithm updates and audience tastes.
Top Healthcare Influencers to Follow
Connect with leading medical voices spanning physicians, survivors, nurses and health advocates.
Dr. Mike Varshavski – @doctor.mike
Board-certified family medicine doctor and social media icon educating over 4 million followers on Instagram.
Joyce Lee MD – @JoyceLeeMD
Pediatric endocrinologist and professor sharing trending health topics with an emphasis on making research understandable.
Lala – @lalalalala
TikTok sensation spreading smiles along with simple health facts to over 4 million followers through infectious positivity.
Santino – @wheelchair_lifestyle
Paraplegic fitness influencer and CrossFit athlete offering an inside look into his wheelchair workouts, accessibility advocacy and resilience mindset.
Healthcare Influencer Marketing Campaign Best Practices
Follow these proven tips for executing winning healthcare influencer campaigns:
Highlight Brand Values – Spotlight social responsibility efforts like community health programs to resonate with care-focused audiences.
Get Creative with Videos – Capture attention through succinct motion graphics explainers, skits, hospital tours and patient testimonials.
Lean Into Education – Position your brand as a thought leader by delivering data-driven healthcare insights vs pure product pitches.
Partner Across Influencer Tiers – Blend nano, micro and macro-influencers to spur awareness and advocacy through differentiated creative content.
Incorporate Performance Incentives – Tie influencer compensation to campaign metrics like impressions delivered, content quality scores or sales driven to ensure shared accountability.
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
With brands investing record budgets into influencer programs, healthcare marketers can‘t ignore this high-impact digital channel.
As platforms like TikTok continue democratizing medical advice and patients turn to social recommendations, the strategic value of healthcare influencer partnerships persists.
By establishing compliant processes, tapping credible partners, incentivizing performance and tracking analytics, healthcare brands can amplify reach while nurturing consumer trust through this disruptive marketing approach.
The pandemic propelled an unprecedented embrace of telehealth, mHealth applications and remote patient experiences – with digital influencers at the forefront guiding consumer adoption and sentiment.
Now is the time for forward-thinking healthcare organizations to develop fully integrated influencer strategies reflecting the digital-first expectations of modern patient populations.
