In its early days, influencer marketing was quickly adopted by the beauty, fashion, technology, and CPG industries. But marketers quickly discovered they could harness the power of influencers across the board – nowadays, 67% of marketers are actively engaging with influencers.
While there are niche influencers who limit their content to certain topics, most influencers connect with their audiences on many different levels. We’ve seen content creators evolve into multifaceted figures that touch on various categories, including health.
Influencer Marketing: A Game Changer For Healthcare Brands
Social media has given people a safe space to voice their experiences with healthcare. Online you can find stories on topics like diabetes, menstrual health (the PCOS hashtag has 352.7 million views on TikTok) and insomnia, just to name a few. Influencers continuously share their health journeys with their communities and create emotional connections as they open up about very personal experiences. It is not unusual to see social posts that candidly detail the influencer’s health struggles and the many products they rely on to improve their lives.
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Influencer partnerships represent an opportunity for health brands to tap into these communities of people that are eager for trusted information. More than 40% of consumers say that information on social media affects the way they deal with their health. It is crucial for healthcare brands to lead the conversation on social media by raising awareness about health concerns, guidelines, and advisories.
Leverage The Power of Storytelling In Influencer Healthcare Campaigns
Outside of the medical professional influencer community, most influencers aren’t typically healthcare experts, but they bring value by sharing real and human day-to-day experiences. When working with brands they tell engaging stories, humanizing brands in the process. While brands know their product from the inside out, influencers are the ones who will bring these products to life, telling compelling stories about how these impacted their lives in a positive way.
More often than not, marketers focus solely on the distribution qualities of influencers, leaving aside the potential for a personal connection with their audiences. A balance between campaign guidelines and creative freedom will impact the outcome of an influencer campaign.
Rules and Regulations For Health Related Influencer Campaigns
Companies operating in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, might find the initial ramp-up period especially daunting due to common challenges in influencer marketing. Identifying the right influencers and ensuring they aren’t explicitly sharing medical advice are important factors that brands have to keep in mind.
HIPAA has outlined clear social media guidelines aimed at healthcare professionals with the goal to protect sensitive patient information. While these don’t cover influencer content, they bring light to some rules that are still important when talking with influencers.
- When talking to influencers, give them the freedom to craft their own copy to make sure they feel comfortable disclosing details about their health. Open communication is key to any campaign, but more so when dealing with sensitive health-related details.
- Letting influencers take the lead on social copy doesn’t mean that you can’t provide them with clear examples and guidelines. When working with healthcare partners, our team at Open Influence usually sets clear copy rules, such as never claiming that the product can cure a condition or claim that influencers are trained professionals. With that being said, our team crafts specific guidelines for every single brand.
- It takes a village! It is never a bad idea to have extra eyes on the social copy before it goes live. With healthcare brands, it is crucial for campaigns to be in compliance with regulations.
We have worked with brands in the health sector through the years, and have our very own strategies to ensure that content is up to standard.
Our team recently worked for a brand of glucose monitors. Our Senior Account Manager, Hilary Drabkin, explained how Open Influence managed the influencer selection process, “Looking at creators who do have diabetes on social platforms, there are only a certain amount who post high-quality content, have a significant following, and pass through OI’s vetting. While we search far and wide to find those influencers who fall into all of these categories, we also work with doctor and nurse influencers, as they have knowledge in this field. We also work with influencers who have a close family connection to Diabetes. For example, the top-performing post from a recent Instagram campaign was not from an influencer with diabetes themselves, but from a nursing student whose father and uncle both live with diabetes.”
Here are some healthcare influencer marketing campaigns for you to get inspired!
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Open Influence is here to tackle your influencer marketing strategy, no matter your industry. Contact us here.
