From “Doctor Google” to #HealthTok Doctors: The Rapid Growth of Healthcare on TikTok
TikTok’s general global rise and spread is no longer a novel topic in marketing circles. While the healthcare community has referenced the popularity of "Doctor Google" for many years, the growth of TikTok as a source of health information has attracted less attention. But we should be paying attention: As the use of TikTok surged during the COVID-19 pandemic (almost doubling from 381 million to 700 million users between 2019 and 2020), so has its use as a source of healthcare information, led by the #HealthTok hashtag. Watch our recent SXSW panel conversation on the power of using TikTok to educate patients on health topics.
As individuals were isolated during the pandemic and many were distanced from their previous relationships with healthcare providers, large numbers turned online. Our analysis of Google search behavior below shows how web searches for TikTok alongside various healthcare terms – in particular doctors and health – grew rapidly as the pandemic took hold and beyond, giving an indication of the rate of their growth on TikTok itself.
Source: Google Trends, Global English-language searches from March 2018 – January 2023
This shift has implications for healthcare marketers and practitioners. TikTok has a strong influence on its audiences, which includes many HCPs. A joint Sermo and LiveWorld Survey featuring 200+ physicians found that more than half (57%) of doctors said they frequently or occasionally change their initial perception of a medication due to social media.
Savvy biopharma marketers are already taking advantage of this opportunity. In May 2022 Astellas was the first pharmaceutical brand to launch a TikTok Pulse program using it for menopause awareness.
However, this story of overall growth doesn’t show the diverging behavior between communities of consumers and HCPs that we have been observing at Real Chemistry. In different areas of the TikTok health ecosystem, there are risks but also opportunities for those who can leverage audience insights to target the right conversations with the right content.
Adapting to the Nuance of Therapy-Area Specific TikTok Communities
To help give an idea of the differences we see in TikTok use in our work for clients, Real Chemistry has put together an analysis of four broad therapy areas, with a focus on how HCPs and patients use the platform to communicate within each area, as well as how each respective audience is attracted by some of the top hashtags.
Source: Quantitative data per hashtag sourced from TikTok Creative Centre Hashtags tool in March 2023 for all regions. Overall HCP and patient posting behavior (frequency and content analysis) derived from a qualitative assessment of publicly available TikTok accounts and posts from 2022 across the US and EU5 countries.
These data only scratch the surface of each, but together give an indication of the level of nuance that needs to be considered when engaging on the platform. For example, the data shows that dermatologists are among the most active HCP groups we have analyzed on TikTok, displaying a strong online relationship between HCP and patient community in a conversation unusually focused on the discipline as a whole – via the general hashtag #dermatology. Their content often centers on debunking myths targeted at consumers.
By contrast, oncology is a space where specialists post much less frequently and when they do, it is more focused on their practice and career progression rather than communication with patients around specific conditions. But this area also highlights another pattern where different hashtags will attract specific user bases. We can see how #cancerfighter, and in particular #cancerfree, attracts an older audience than TikTok as a whole – in contrast to disease awareness conversations, which tend to attract a much younger audience on the platform.
The nuances between these therapeutic areas highlight why detailed digital insights are needed as part of the planning process for marketing activation and creative development. Successfully impacting the cardiology conversation, where user-generated content targets a broad audience with disease awareness messages, requires a very different approach to neurology where both patients and HCPs focus more on supporting their own community.
The above distinctions show why at the outset careful marketers should audit and segment the spaces they are engaging in on TikTok. It’s essential to understand how content, the target audience, and their underlying needs break down across different constituent hashtags before developing an engagement strategy.
The Bigger Picture: Key Views From the Media
Looking more widely, we know that healthcare marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and the potential gains from tapping into TikTok and its unique audience must be balanced against the risks that come from a rapidly changing context.
To give you an idea of the trends shaping the use of TikTok within healthcare, Real Chemistry analysts used AI tools to identify patterns in what was being said about TikTok by journalists in earned media outlets in connection with doctors, healthcare, health and medicines over the last 8 months. This approach used natural language processing capabilities to process the noise into actionable theme clusters.
Source: Global English language top-tier and trade media from August 2022 – February 2023
Many will find it unsurprising that the largest share of TikTok media coverage featuring healthcare references wellness and beauty and health information. However, that traditional media outlets are increasingly citing advice from the platform on areas from motherhood to dentistry demonstrates its growing reputability as an information source even among "top tier" voices. It also the value to marketers of tapping TikTok conversation to identify trends early, which can then be leveraged on other channels.
Beyond that, we see that outlets are taking a wider view; both of the opportunities (business coverage highlighted Amgen, AstraZeneca and Astellas all making successful moves onto the platform) and also of the risks (of operating on a platform that has been criticized for data privacy and online harm, and plays host to discussions of a range of controversies).
Diving further into these topics shows that each contains both potential areas of interest to HCPs and to consumers, but also areas of risk.
Source: Global English language top-tier and trade media from August 2022 – February 2023
For example, accurate healthcare advice shared on TikTok by HCPs, specialists and patients can empower others to take control of their health, well-being and diet, thereby improving individuals’ lives and potentially reducing burdens on healthcare systems. But widely emerging conversations like the one around #Guttok are also being called out as a source of potentially harmful medical misinformation. HCPs also face scrutiny here – with coverage featuring pieces criticizing individual practitioners posting their experiences online as inappropriate or "performative".
Brands can and should play an essential role here in addressing the need for factual sources and experts in these spaces, but a clear understanding of the viewpoints involved should be built first to effectively mitigate risks.
The TL;DR
In summary: the rapid rise of health conversation on TikTok leaves no doubt that #HealthTok is here to stay for marketers, as is the need to engage with the creative, inspiring and enthusiastic communities around it. Activating on TikTok comes with risks, but if marketers enter the space with targeted audience research and a data-based strategy in hand, they will find an excellent route to capturing audiences’ attention. If you are interested in learning more about how we’ve successfully used TikTok for clients, please reach out.
This blog post is powered by RC Integrated Intelligence.
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