Healthcare Influencer Marketing: Should Your Brand Join the Trend?

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and now TikTok are the communication channels of Millennials, Generation Z, and other generational cohorts. Social media has become a place to get up to date on world news, the latest trends, new products, and pop culture. They are even places to conduct research on healthcare and wellness.

Due to the popularity of social media, celebrities and other notable individuals are being asked for public endorsements. As such, we have seen a rise in the popularity of influencer marketing.

A new era has emerged that has the potential to have a lasting impact on how we market products and brands: the age of the Influencer.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencers are people with loyal audiences who have the ability to impact the decision-making of their followers. Take Michael Jordan endorsing Nike sneakers back in the day or, more recently, Kendall Jenner discussing her struggles with acne in a ProActiv commercial. These are prime examples of celebrities using their influence to promote products they endorse.

Often, influencer marketing campaigns are seen on social media, but as we’ve seen for decades, marketing through endorsers takes place on TV, in print, and via other media.

Influencer Marketing in Healthcare

Healthcare influencer marketing demands a tactical approach to selecting the right ‘representative’ for your brand. Due to the sensitive nature of personal healthcare, brand managers should choose someone who has had a personal experience with a product or brand, so they can provide reliable, first-person testimony about their experience.

There have been several excellent examples of healthcare influencer marketing in recent years.

1. Former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick partnered with Chicago’s Edward-Elmhurst Health System in 2015 to work on their “Healthy Driven” campaign, which is focused on moving people’s health forward with concentrations on disease prevention and health screenings.

1. Australia’s Amcal Pharmacy partnered with another race car driver, Jack Perkins, who shared his story on Instagram about living with Type 1 Diabetes and how Amcal helped him with the medications he needed to manage his symptoms.

1. Actress and artist Queen Latifah partnered with Novartis in 2016 to promote its heart-failure treatment drug Entresto. On World Heart Day that year, more than 35 thousand people viewed a live-stream discussion on Facebook Live, where she shared her mother’s tragic story.

The list of celebrity endorsers supporting healthcare initiatives has grown rapidly. As such, healthcare brands have been devoting more budget to influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing for Your Healthcare Brand

If you are looking to extend your marketing into the influencer-driven sphere, keep the following points in mind as you start your search for the right influencer:

• Your influencer is sharing, not selling. Building a relationship with your audience through their favorite influencers cannot seem like a product push. Their stories should be personal enough to connect with potential new customers.
• Play by the rules. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has some straightforward endorsement guidelines on how to properly depict sponsorship. Ensure the proper risk information is disclosed to avoid landing in hot water with the FTC and the FDA.
• Consider a micro influencer. Look for those with between 1,000-10,000 followers, as they tend to be more relatable to their fans, seeing higher engagement rates. Plus, micro influencers tend to be much less costly when compared to people with larger fan bases.
• Use patient influencers. Engage your audience with real-world patients who become health advocates by actively discussing their experiences. Conversations that help patients manage their illnesses can have a tremendous effect on campaign success.

If you’re considering adding influencer marketing to your strategy, also think about sharing their stories on both digital and print channels. Our journal reprints, for example, have been influencing healthcare audiences with trustworthy content for decades. Contact an Elsevier representative today to learn more!

Article Written by: Alex Brown