Especially for people with a chronic or rare illness, social media is a very important channel for getting information and exchanging ideas with others. Companies can use this momentum and cooperate with so-called patient influencers. Tamara Dähne from MCG Medical Consulting Group explains how this works in her article for Health Relations.
Influencers have long been around not only for lifestyle, fashion and travel topics, but also in the health sector. So-called patient influencers are those affected who share their personal experiences with their illness on social media. And very successfully: Their individual stories, emotional moments and helpful tips on how to deal with the disease enable them to build an engaged community and thus also have a major influence on health communication and information via social media.
Just a few well-known examples include Samira (@chronischfabelhaft), an MS blogger who uses social media to explain about her illness and is committed to involving patients in communication, Sabrina (@unwetterimkopf), which in Podcast and social media talks about migraines and shares her knowledge or Alexandra (@kickcancerchick), which talks about breast cancer not only on their Instagram channel reported, but also in the podcast ”2 women, 2 breasts”.
Create awareness of illness
Both patient influencers and companies usually pursue the same goal: Create awareness of a disease and educate about it. In order for the collaboration to work for both parties — with the best possible outcome for both — there are three elementary things to consider:
Tip 1: View patient influencers as long-term partners
A number of steps have already been completed before the cooperation is completed (research and selection of suitable cooperation partners, contract processing, briefing, etc.). In other words, time was invested and a selection was made by patient influencers who are generally a good fit for the company and the topics. Instead of a one-off cooperation, here should be thought about in the long term, because otherwise, not only will the effort required for research, management and processing have to be carried out again, it will also take a bit of luck to find suitable cooperation partners once again.
But the success of the measures can also benefit from longer-term cooperation: Companies and patient influencers can create a build a trusting and close relationship, which enables seamless communication and better exchange of information to achieve common goals. This basis of trust can also mean a continuous presence on the influencer's channel, which means that relevant messages are more likely to be consolidated in the target group's mindset. In addition, long-term cooperation can generate learnings, which in turn are incorporated into communication planning.
Tip 2: Implement advisory boards together
In addition, patient influencers are not only experts in their own cause, but can also as a consultant for companies be involved in communication planning: No one knows the disease as well as those affected themselves and at the same time has such a close relationship with a patient community.
As part of regular Patient Advisory Boards The communication strategy can be planned together: The patient influencers can provide valuable insights into the needs and questions of the target group and use their digital know-how to support the development of platform-appropriate content.
Tip 3: Let patient influencers speak for themselves
It is important that companies can also give up control when working with patient influencers, because: The best way to present factual information authentically and interestingly is to let patient influencers speak for themselves. Not only does a high degree of credibility arise when the messages come from someone who knows the challenges and how to deal with the illness on a daily basis — the topic gains emotionality and the community feels understood and taken care of. This creates a dialogue with and within the target group much faster and the topic is more likely to gain reach and attention.
conclusion
Patient influencers should not be seen as a powerful tool, but as partners with a powerful voice within a community. They can give relevant topics the necessary amount of emotionality and authenticity so that messages reach the target group. At the same time, cooperation should be on equal footing, because the patient influencers are absolute experts in their field — not only when it comes to their illness, but also communication on social media. Companies should be open to suggestions from influencers and give them as much freedom as possible to implement joint projects. Because in this way, both sides benefit from the collaboration in the end.
