Once known as a platform for Gen Z dance challenges, TikTok has now become an entertainment and education tool, one where users can research brands, shop, and laugh.
This is thanks to the introduction of incredible features like livestreaming, in-app shopping, and branded hashtag challenges that enable brands to connect directly with customers.
No wonder, 75% of healthcare marketers plan to boost TikTok ad spending.
But how do healthcare brands use TikTok?
In this article, you’re going to learn how to leverage TikTok to effectively market your healthcare brand.
Let’s get started.
What is TikTok Marketing?
TikTok marketing encompasses using TikTok to promote your brand, product, or service using short-form video content that can engage your audience and showcase what you sell.
Here’s an example of TikTok marketing where Rush University Medical Center used TikTok to share symptoms of Monkeypox to help their audience diagnose themselves.
Image via TikTok
Healthcare brands can leverage TikTok marketing in the following ways:
- TikTok influencer marketing: Partnering with celebrities or industry experts who have followers on the platform.
- TikTok advertising: Create paid ads to drive the reach of your content.
- Create TikTok content by yourself: Create organic viral content about your product or service and let it reach your audience organically. It’s a great way to market your business while controlling expenses.
Why Should You Use TikTok for Healthcare Marketing?
If you’re not using TikTok to market your healthcare brand, you’re giving your competitors an edge over you. Besides, you’re missing out on a lot of business opportunities.
Here’s why.
A recent study shows that 84% of marketers plan to increase their investment spending on TikTok:
Image via Marketing Charts
When compared to the most popular social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, TikTok has the highest engagement rate of 4.25%:
Image via Socialinsider
Additionally, if your brand targets a younger audience, then TikTok should be at the top of your list of social media marketing platforms.
Why?
According to eMarketer, US Gen Z spent more than 12 hours on TikTok in 2022 every week, which is way higher than YouTube (5.8 hours), Instagram (3.8 hours), Snapchat (3.7 hours), and Roblox (3.4 hours).
Image via eMarketer
The best thing about TikTok is that it enables health brands to freely express their creativity and encourages out-of-the-box thinking.
That being said, here are some of the benefits of using TikTok for healthcare marketing:
Customers Are Using TikTok to Find and Purchase Products
A recent survey shows that 21% of US adults start their product search on TikTok.
Another report from eMarketer shows that TikTok has exceeded Pinterest in the number of US social buyers, narrowing the gap with Instagram:
Image via eMarketer
This report implies that people are purchasing products or services from brands after seeing them featured on TikTok today, more than ever.
If you’re looking to drive more sales for your healthcare products or services through social media marketing then TikTok is a great channel for you.
Your Healthcare Brand Can Go Viral Fast
Want your healthcare products or services to become the talk of the town real quick?
Promote your brand on TikTok.
Unlike other platforms’ algorithms, the TikTok algorithm focuses more on getting your content discovered rather than showing content from friends.
The platform allows you to see content from users you already follow and also enables users to discover new content through the “For You” feed, which is the platform’s main content discovery tool.
That said, here’s how healthcare brands use TikTok.
4 Ways Healthcare Brands Use TikTok
If you want to effectively utilize TikTok marketing for your healthcare brand, here’s how to do it.
1. Create a Winning TikTok Marketing Strategy
Being one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, TikTok is constantly evolving. You also have to evolve with it to keep up with the changing algorithm and features.
The first step to achieving that is to come up with a winning TikTok marketing strategy that allows you to deliver original and quality content that grabs your audience’s interest in your brand.
Here’s how to come up with a killer strategy for your TikTok marketing:
- Identify an audience for your healthcare brand. Here, you can use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs.
- Connect with other healthcare creators on the platform to learn how they create their content.
- Set goals so that you can measure the success of your strategy
- Plan out your content by creating a content calendar to keep your work organized
Pro Tip: Leverage reliable marketing tools that can help you target and reach the right audience with personalized ads to increase your reach across multiple platforms.
2. Create Explainer Videos
Healthcare explainer videos are a great way to introduce complicated ideas or convey difficult concepts to your audiences.
You can create explainer videos that help explain how certain medications work, educate your audiences about how to manage, treat, and prevent certain illnesses, etc.
There are many benefits of creating healthcare explainer videos for your TikTok marketing.
Here are a few of the benefits.
- Help you engage with your patient and educate them
- Enable you to promote healthcare products or services effectively
- Help increase brand awareness
- Enable you to explain complex healthcare terms in an easy way
- Help improve conversions
The good thing about TikTok is that you can create concise and engaging videos to explain how your products work.
For instance, in the short video below, Trevor Folgering explains the top five foods to reverse insulin resistance for people over 40 years suffering from being overweight:
Image via TikTok
3. Share Problem-Solving Videos
Effective marketing encompasses speaking directly to your audience and the challenges they are facing.
This is especially important when promoting health-related products—because your products are meant to solve their problems. And this is where sharing problem-solving videos on TikTok becomes helpful.
Creating short videos that discuss symptoms can help you grab your audience’s attention on TikTok.
If you sell products that offer relief or a solution to a problem your audience struggles with, these are the types of TikTok videos to create.
In the video below, EverlyWell’s at-home lab tests share a list of four signs of hormonal imbalance to help viewers know how to solve it.
Image via TikTok
4. Leverage Humor
To drive your reach further on TikTok and to engage your audience, you should consider incorporating humor into your content. It could be something as simple as adding funny graphics by following design principles.
If you can educate your audience about your health-focused products in a way that makes them laugh, then you can encourage them to buy from you.
The good thing about TikTok is that, unlike Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms, it allows you to make your content more personable and fun. So, feel free to add humor.
Conclusion
TikTok is rapidly growing in popularity and many brands have reported great results by using it.
However, knowing how to use it to effectively promote your products or services is greatly important.
Understanding how healthcare brands use TikTok marketing can help you know how to connect with your audience, engage, and promote your products briefly and quickly.
