TikTok reached over 2 billion downloads worldwide this past April. Every month, over 850 million unique users login to the video platform.
It’s such a popular app that it’s helped songs top global music charts including…
After reading those two statistics, professional marketers start to salivate. After all, who wouldn’t want to get their brand in front of that many people?
But if you’re like the majority of healthcare providers, you just began implementing your Instagram strategy. If that’s true, right now you’re probably thinking, “So, you’re telling me I need to add more marketing work on my plate?”
I understand that the thought of learning and strategizing for a new social media platform might make you a little apprehensive. But you’ll feel much better (and maybe a little bit eager) after reading this TikTok 101 course for healthcare providers.
Table of Contents
Crash Course on TikTok
If you’re millennial, trendy Generation X, or hip Baby Boomer and I describe TikTok to you as Generation Z’s form of Vine, you’ll have a pretty good understanding of the app.
But if you don’t that’s fine. No, it has nothing to do with Ke$ha’s 2009 hit.
In short, it’s is the latest trending social media app where users create and share short videos. The three most common types of videos you’ll find on this platform involve…
Lip-syncing
Comedy
Talents
A Chinese company, ByteDance, owns the app. ByteDance first released it in China three years ago in September of 2016 under the name Douyin.
Douyin still exists and runs off of the same technology as its US predecessor. ByteDance had to separate the two apps from one another because of China’s censorship restrictions.
It wasn’t until 2017 when ByteDance brought TikTok to the United States. ByteDance’s ticket into the US market was when they purchased another video social media app called Musica.ly. Musica.ly was similar, except its content didn’t stretch beyond lip-syncing.
Two years later and it’s become a content behemoth that many businesses or healthcare companies haven’t yet taken advantage of.
Throughout 2020, TikTok received a lot of negative publicity from the US government. In July, officials stated that the app was a concern to national security. For the social media platform to stay operational within the US, ByteDance had to remove its ties with China and/or sell a portion of the organization to an American company.
As a result, a tentative deal with the Trump administration required TikTok to become a global company headquartered within the US. Furthermore, Oracle and Walmart became partial owners.
an agreement for TikTok to become a new global company headquartered in the United States, with Oracle (ORCL) and Walmart (WMT) serving as partial owners.
Users on the application spend 45 minutes on it every day. This means getting popular on this app as a healthcare provider is ripe for the taking.
Create a Profile That Reflects Your Practice
What’s different with TikTok when it comes to marketing your healthcare practice starts with the profile. Unlike its competitors, it doesn’t have a way to designate a business user account from a regular one.
This presents you with two different ways to approach this platform…
A Profile For Yourself
If you want to try to become an influencer, this is the “quickest” way to. The strategy here is to create a profile for yourself and create content that’s related to what your practice does. Once you start to generate a solid foundation of followers, drop subtle, direct hints to your business.
When you create your profile, think of a catchy username. Other than the content you post and the hashtags you use, your username is the most important aspect of any social media.
Luckily, it’s easy to find people on TikTok. This is especially true if your username reflects what you do as a healthcare provider.
Here’s a great example of a health professional who’s also a TikTok influencer.
If you look at her handle it’s @nurseangelaknows and her username is Nurse Angela. In other words, she’s killing the keyword game by making it obvious of her expertise.
What’s great about her username is you can find it fast. All a user has to do is open the app, search the word “nurse” and she’s the first result under users.
You don’t need to be sales-oriented because the more interest you drive to your profile, the more likely people will Google you. Once people Google you, they’ll find your practice.
This is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, especially if you’re a doctor, dentist, nurse, or surgeon.
It doesn’t matter what you specialize in with this strategy. It’s a more passive approach but it’ll make it easier for your audience to connect with you on a personal level.
Company Profile
Creating an account that’s specific to your practice isn’t a bad idea but it may make it harder for you to establish an audience early on. But some businesses have seen some success in TikTok.
As an example, Walmart posted its first video in September of 2019. Since they’ve snagged almost 120,000 followers.
But if we’re being realistic, Walmart is such a massive company that it’s almost impossible for them not to garner a massive audience on any social media channel.
If you’re a small healthcare provider, it’ll be a challenge to get your business profile off the ground. After all, the biggest reason why users follow business accounts in the first place is to learn about upcoming sales while only 23% follow for their funny content.
It’s much harder to establish a “personal” connection with a business account on social media. Every post represents the business as a whole so adding personality becomes harder.
Content That Works on TikTok
Once you’ve determined which type of account you want to make and what your username is, it’s time to start publishing content. Like with any social media, this is where you could overwhelm yourself. But don’t paralyze your success on this app by overanalyzing. Come up with a few ideas and start posting.
When making content, each user has 1 minute to record a video on their phone. The app provides a series of effects, filters, and basic editing capabilities so content can get pushed out quickly. You just need to know what works.
Here’s a step-by-step process to start making engaging content on TikTok.
Look At What Other People Post
Videos on TikTok get sorted by the hashtags people use. Each hashtag acts as a folder that houses all of the content. When you enter the app, you’ll immediately start to see videos. These videos are apart of the “For You” page. This page finds content for you based on the app’s AI-driven algorithms, what videos you like and who you follow.
To find the most trending content, you could either begin scrolling through the “For You” page or click on the “Discover” magnifying glass.
If you scroll through the “For You” page, you’ll immediately start to notice some of the most popular social trends. Many of them are dances, memes, and templated content.
While you’re watching, take note of the soundtracks people use, their descriptions, and hashtags. The more time you spend watching one type of video over the other, the more often they’ll show up on your “For You” page.
When you travel to the “Discover page”, you’ll be able to explore the most trending hashtagged content. Follow different hashtagged content that you could do yourself as a healthcare provider.
Record Videos Based on Trends
Here’s an example of a healthcare provider who uses TikTok and creates content based on what’s trending.
This influencer’s handle is @xraydoctor and I found him using the same method I used to discover Nurse Holly.
In this particular piece of content, he’s doing the popular “character select” trend.
Essentially this trend involves rotating like a video game character would on a selection screen and listing attributes associated with what you do. In his case, his character is “Interventional Radiologist”, which also happens to be his career.
It’s a very simple, templated piece of content that gave him…
Over 7,000 views
Almost 600 favorites
Almost 20 comments
Almost 10 shares
Attention To Detail Goes a Long Way
As you spend more time on TikTok, you’ll notice that the most popular videos have terrific timing, transformative transitions, engaging effects, and specific soundtracks. That’s because these personal touches go a long way, especially for the templated content.
When you first notice the templated content, you’ll get a little confused about why this app is so popular. But you’ll continue scrolling.
Eventually, you’ll land on an identical video with the same soundtrack and you’ll say to yourself, “It’s only a few seconds long, why not watch it?” While you’re watching, you’ll notice that this user put a different creative spin on the templated content. Making it a bit more unique.
That’s how trending content on TikTok works, you see a video you like and remix it with your artistic interpretation of it.
Do The Duet
While you’re cruising through your personalized “For You” page, you might come across two or more side-by-side videos that play simultaneously. TikTok refers to this type of content as a “Duet” and it’s unique to the platform.
Its purpose is to provide creators with another way to communicate, respond, or collaborate.
But while you’re trying to think about content ideas for this social media app, keep the “Duet” feature in mind. What makes it such an essential part of your strategy for this app is that it’s a direct, video response to another content creator.
If you don’t have that large of an audience and you “Duet” an influencer, they’ll get notified. If they like what you did with their content, they might do one with a video of yours in return.
Posting engaging content on TikTok is a simple concept but its execution takes some practice. But don’t let that scare you away. Find trending content, refocus it for your healthcare profession, and then share it using the right hashtags.
Utilize Video Reply to Comments
TikTok constantly receives new updates. With that, comes new functionality for its user base to take advantage of.
One of the most interesting features that the app added in 2020 was the ability to reply to comments with videos.
Let’s say you posted a video and someone comments on it with a question. Any good “TikToker” will tell you that you should reply to them. After all, you’re trying to build a community and replying increases video engagement
The reply to comment with video functionality makes it possible to create a more personalized response that also gets added to your profile. Instead of a canned message over text, they’ll receive a more genuine response from you.
If you’re a healthcare professional, this might be the most important functionality to use. We all know that people Google their symptoms. As a result, the community you create will ask you health-related questions.
Why not answer those questions with a genuine video response?
Doctor Jess Andradre has a following of more than 570,000 people on TikTok. From time to time she’ll use this functionality to respond to her commenters.
You don’t only have to respond to the serious questions, have fun with it and get in on the jokes people make.
Engage With Your Community
Once you begin your content strategy and post consistently, you’ll start to attract followers and establish a community.
Building a community around your practice’s account is like nurturing a business relationship, it takes time but leads to huge benefits.
If you’re a healthcare provider, people will begin to ask you questions about your content, what you do, and for health tips. Engage with these people.
If you provide great content and reply to those users who comment, they’ll keep coming back to your page.
Stay Away From Controversy
Working within healthcare is a huge responsibility, that’s no secret.
As a result, though, there have been instances where medical professionals go too far in the content they post. Some have even faced HIPAA violations that resulted in fines or immediate dismissal from their place of employment.
TikTok is arguably still in its infancy stages. Even so, some professionals already faced controversy from content they’ve published on the app.
Nurse Holly, also known as @hollygrace95, faced immediate backlash for a TikTok video she published in January of 2020.
In the video, she gave her political views about “the best way to avoid STDs”. Her post led to heated commentary both directly on the video itself and on crossposts on other social media platforms.
It even landed on a Buzzfeed article. She’s since removed all of her videos and changed her username.
Nurse Holly is one of the first examples of a growing list of nurses who’ve faced controversy over what they’ve uploaded to the popular video platform.
Conclusion
If you’re apprehensive about creating a TikTok as a healthcare provider, don’t be. It’s a brand new social media app which means it’s not oversaturated with influencers.
Instead, it’s booming in user popularity. 90% of all TikTok users access the app daily.
That means it’s a huge opportunity for you to increase your social presence and establish yourself as an expert in your field to millions of people.
