Overview
- To find the right influencers for your healthcare brand, focus on healthcare professionals with credibility and expertise.
- Ensure the influencer’s persona aligns with your brand’s tone for better audience engagement.
- Research potential influencers for shared values to avoid scandals and promote authenticity.
- A strategic influencer program can boost brand awareness and lead generation, but requires effort and time.
- Consider hiring a digital marketing agency to navigate compliance and manage influencer partnerships effectively.
In our previous article, we shared why influencer marketing can be an important part of your healthcare organization’s digital marketing strategy and some tips on how to get started. One of the most important next steps is to actually go out there and find influencers for your healthcare brand — but, that’s easier said than done!
Partnering with the wrong social media influencer is one of the biggest mistakes when it comes to this type of marketing. In this article, we share three tips on how to find the right influencer for your brand.
Influencer Marketing Tip #1: Look For Influencers Who Are Also Healthcare Professionals
Whether your business offers medical devices, vitamins, or telehealth/telemedicine services, an important step is to look at who the healthcare professionals are within your particular sector.
If you’re dealing with a birth control product, for example, it makes sense to do some research into healthcare providers specializing in women’s health, such as OB/GYNs. That’s the route we took when we launched our award-winning influencer marketing program for Exeltis’ unique birth control product, Slynd.
Healthcare professionals who are also influencers on social media command a highly engaged audience. Followers not only trust these professionals due to their expertise, but they are also willing to hear what they have to say when a new product is promoted.
Influencer marketing is commonplace when it comes to digital marketing, yet there are still consumers who see this type of marketing as less reliable. That’s why partnering with a healthcare professional can add more credibility and trustworthiness to the overall campaign.
Influencer Marketing Tip #2: Look For Influencers With a “Personality Fit”
Every brand has its own unique tone. Nike’s tone is quite different from Prada’s, for example, and similarly, your brand’s tone and “personality” is different from other healthcare brands (even the ones that are direct competitors).
When looking for an influencer, it’s important to keep in mind the type of image or persona that each influencer portrays on their social media and the content they share. These factors often impact the audience following them. Do they have a slightly older audience with followers mostly in their late 30s or 40s? Or, are they primarily attracting a younger Gen Z audience? Is the influencer positioning themselves with a more approachable, “next-door neighbor” type of persona? Or, do they mostly post about high-end products and partnerships?
Understanding where and how a potential influencer and their personal brand fits into your company’s brand is one of the keys to success.
Influencer Marketing Tip #3: Look For Influencers With a Shared Vision
Nobody likes being embroiled in a social media scandal — especially marketers in the healthcare industry where everything is highly regulated. One way to mitigate this risk is to do extensive research into potential influencers to learn their history and the values they stand for. While it may sound unfair, an influencer’s previous mishaps may color how consumers view your brand, even if you had nothing to do with it!
For example, when choosing who to partner with for the influencer program for our client Exeltis and their birth control product, we were on the lookout for healthcare professionals who also focused on empowering women. This was a good fit for our client whose product is positioned to empower women by offering them more choice and freedom through their birth control pill.
Another benefit of finding influencers that share your vision is that they’re more likely to say yes to your offer! Many social media influencers are open to promoting products, but the majority will only form partnerships with brands that they feel reflect their values. This allows them to speak authentically about your product.
Finding the Right Influencer For Your Healthcare Brand
While finding the right influencer takes a lot of time and effort, a strategic influencer program can elevate your brand to a new audience and help you reach your goals, whether it’s improving brand awareness or generating leads.
Lastly, here’s a bonus tip: if all of this sounds like it’s too much to handle alone, find a digital marketing agency that can help source, research, and partner with influencers on your behalf. Especially in the healthcare space, there are a lot of compliance requirements to handle, like making sure the influencer’s content has the appropriate disclosures. That’s something that our team manages for clients, so be sure to check out the full case study below to learn how we do it!
Here’s how we achieved over 340 million ad impressions for one pharma brand!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you find the right influencers for a healthcare brand?
To find the right influencers for a healthcare brand, prioritize healthcare professionals who have credibility and expertise in your specific sector, then evaluate each candidate for personality fit with your brand’s tone and shared values that match your mission. For a birth control product, for example, that means researching providers who specialize in women’s health, such as OB/GYNs. Vetting an influencer’s history and the values they stand for helps avoid scandals and ensures they can speak authentically about your product.
Why should healthcare influencers also be healthcare professionals?
Healthcare influencers who are also practicing healthcare professionals command a highly engaged audience because followers trust their expertise and are more willing to hear what they say when a new product is promoted. While some consumers see influencer marketing as less reliable, partnering with a credentialed healthcare professional adds credibility and trustworthiness to the overall campaign. For sector-specific products, this means matching the professional’s specialty to the product, such as choosing OB/GYNs for a women’s health or birth control product.
What is a personality fit when choosing a social media influencer?
A personality fit means the image, persona, and content an influencer portrays on social media aligns with a brand’s own unique tone, similar to how Nike’s tone differs from Prada’s. Assessing fit involves understanding the influencer’s audience demographics (such as whether they attract followers in their late 30s and 40s versus a younger Gen Z audience) and whether their persona is approachable and ‘next-door neighbor’ or focused on high-end products. Matching the influencer’s personal brand to the company’s brand is one of the keys to a successful partnership.
How do you reduce compliance and scandal risk in healthcare influencer marketing?
To reduce compliance and scandal risk in healthcare influencer marketing, conduct extensive research into a potential influencer’s history and the values they stand for, since an influencer’s previous mishaps can color how consumers view your brand even if you were not involved. Because healthcare is highly regulated, content must also carry the appropriate disclosures. Many brands hire a digital marketing agency to source, research, and partner with influencers and to manage these compliance requirements on their behalf.
Why does shared vision matter when partnering with a healthcare influencer?
Shared vision matters because influencers are more likely to accept a partnership and speak authentically about a product when the brand reflects their own values, and the majority of influencers only partner with brands they feel aligned with. For a birth control product positioned to empower women through more choice and freedom, the right fit is a healthcare professional who also focuses on empowering women. Aligning on values both improves authenticity and increases the chance the influencer says yes to the offer.