This week on the DrMarketingTips podcast, we break down how medical practices and physicians are using TikTok to expand their reach, educate their audience, and promote their brand. 

Listen in as Insight Marketing Group Head of Business Development, Jennifer Taggart does a walkthrough and deep-dive into the latest craze sweeping social media. 

Tune in to discover: 

• What TikTok is and who’s using it
• How to create a TikTok profile and what you should post 
• What other physicians are currently posting on TikTok
• The potential of TikTok to help you recruit top-level talent
• Best practices and concerns practice managers need to be aware of

References:

TikTok for Medical Practices webinar

The New York Times, “Doctors on TikTok Try to Go Viral”

Transcript Notes

Speaker 1: Dr Marketing Tips, paging Dr Marketing Tips. Dr Marketing Tips, you’re needed in the Marketing Department. Welcome to the Dr Marketing Tips podcast. Your prescription to the answers you seek to grow your medical practice easier, better, and faster. This show is all about connecting practice administrators and medical marketing professionals with peers working in practices, learning from experiences, making mistakes, and sharing successes. Let’s get started.

Corey: Hey everyone, and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Dr Marketing Tips podcast. I’m one of your regular hosts, Corey, and with me today is head of business development for Insight Marketing Group. Jennifer Taggart. Jen, thanks for joining us.

Jennifer Taggart: Oh, thank you Corey. I’m excited to talk about this topic today.

Corey: Awesome. So today we’re talking about the latest craze that’s sweeping social media, Tik Tok. So we just hosted a live Tik Tok webinar, just the other day actually, and we know not everyone could make it. So we wanted to share some of the big ideas, and the key takeaways with the listeners of the Dr Marketing Tips podcast. So, we’ve got one goal here. By the end of the podcast, we want you to have a general understanding of the latest and greatest social media app. And if you’re stopped in the hallway, and you’re asked about it, you’ll at least be able to have a conversation, and sound like you know what you’re talking about. So Jen, tell us about Tik Tok, and how it’s being used in the healthcare field.

Jennifer Taggart: Well, Tik Tok is the absolute fastest growing social media app that is out there right now. It has 188 million users, and it’s growing every day. I can guarantee if you check that today, it’s going to be different. People are using it from dancing videos, to talking about just life in general, to asking for advice. They’re even now using it, somewhat of a dating app. It’s just absolutely crazy. So there’s a couple of different things. Like I said, you can do video, and have sound in the background. You can text on it. It’s a lot of fun, but also very informational.

Corey: That’s awesome. Yeah, and it seems like what we’re starting to see is that more and more physicians, nurses, healthcare providers are turning to Tik Tok to share. And sometimes like you said, it’s kind of that fun, dancing thing. I think most people, when they think of Tik Tok, they think of that fun, dancing, 15-second, 10-second clip, whatever it is. But you were telling me before we started that some of the physicians are actually providing real information on there, which is really cool.

Jennifer Taggart: They really are. So let me take a step back a little bit and tell how I found the doctors on Tik Tok and how I actually found Tik Tok. I’m a little bit of a stalker mom. I have two teenage girls, and they’re very hip, and into the latest and greatest things that are out there. And one night, we’re sitting, and both of them are dancers, and they’re recording themselves over and over, and laughing, and doing all this. So I asked them what they were doing and they showed me. So I stopped, I got Tik Tok account, and started watching, and paying attention, and looking at what they were doing, and it was a lot of fun. But what I started to see is the ship from it becoming fun for me to starting to see how I was being targeted by the things that I liked based on my my account, and my age, and my birthday, and that type of thing.

Jennifer Taggart: So I started to see physicians using it to give best practices. So the first one I actually saw was an endocrinologist, who was talking about what happens during your first appointment, and what is the difference, what is an endocrinologist? And then I started looking at the hashtags, and from there it just kind of snowballed. And I found all of these doctor, or medical, or doctor appointment hashtags, which is what makes Tik Tok function. It is very much built on hashtags. And if you aren’t familiar with hashtags, they use them on Instagram, as well. And really, if you hashtag things that are relevant to your video or your post, it kind of funnels you to those people that are liking, and are interested in those hashtags. So once I started liking the doctor and medical type hash tags, they all started showing up in my, what they call, For You page.

Jennifer Taggart: So there’s two pages on Tik Tok. There’s one that is a Follow page. So, that is all the people that you’ve actually chose to follow. Then there’s a page that they For You page and that is based on the content in which you have either liked, or commented, or chose to follow someone. So that’s how the two pages work. So once I started following anything doctor or medical, it started showing up on my For You page. I could not believe the amount of physicians that were on this, and how they’re using it, some very good and some not so good. But it really … I’m sorry, go ahead.

Corey: So, before we get into specific examples of how that’s going to work. So kind of walk our listeners through what would happen with a post. So I sign up. I’ve got an account, right? And then, now what? So I can do a video. I can add some text. And what do I do from there to do what you’re talking about?

Jennifer Taggar…: Well, there’s so much that you can do, and the learning curve with Tik Tok is a little bit extensive, which is why I say don’t jump into it, watch first. Get on, and just immediately, you will start seeing. You don’t have to post anything to start seeing things on your For You page. It’ll just randomly start sending you the top trending videos. So you can start looking at it a little bit, and getting an idea of what other people are doing.

Jennifer Taggart: But if you want to record a video, it really is very, very easy. It’s very much like recording on your phone, set up in a very similar way. On the right hand side, you’ll see all of your edit buttons. On the bottom, there’s a big red button, that’s your record. It has a timer to set, so if you need a few minutes to get ready, but it’s really very user friendly, and I think that’s why it’s become so popular. And then sharing it on all of your social media platforms is super easy as well. There’s an arrow button that says, “Share, link my accounts,” and it’ll link everything. And once you post on Tik Tok, it posts on everything.

Corey: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. So it’s not just, you’re not in this silo thinking that, “Oh, if I post on Tik Tok then that’s as far as it goes.” So you’re saying it’s pretty easy to actually hit that button and then share it to other accounts?

Jennifer Taggart: It is. It’s very easy, and all of those hashtags follow. So if you are using the same hashtags on Instagram, those hashtags transfer over to Tik Tok. So when you share it, they all go as well.

Corey: Gotcha.

Jennifer Taggart: So, yeah, it’s super easy to do. But there’s a lot of different features within Tik Tok, which make it super user friendly. So like I said, you can put music behind it. So there’s a little sound button at the top, when you get ready to record something. At the top, it’ll say choose your sound, and you can go in and pick whatever music you want behind it. And there’s also, when you do that, it’ll give you a bar that we’ll you the top trending sounds, which will push you to the top of the viewer profiles. So if you’re using a trending song that will show up on more For You pages for the average Tik Tok user.

Corey: Speaking of the average Tik Tok user, so the demo seems like a majority of it is teens, or at least that’s the perception. But is that actually true? And do you see a shift in that?

Jennifer Taggart: It is growing every day. The more popular it becomes, and the more people are learning about Tik Tok, and how much fun it is, and the community on Tik Tok is very laid back. It’s very interactive. It’s in that moment interaction. So it is growing. That demo is leaps and bounds growing. The kids are still definitely at the top, because they were the first to be introduced to it, and the first users. But that millennial, that elder millennial, if you will, the late 20s, early 30s, they’re hugely on Tik Tok. The #momlife, or #newmom, or #momclub, it’s huge. And that is your late 20s through your 30s.

Jennifer Taggart: There is now, they have a #club30, and that was one of the number one trending hashtags for a very long time. Now there’s #club40, #club50, and just two days ago, over the weekend I saw hashtag #club60. So it is growing. I would be in that #club50, and there are 586 million users just on #club50.

Corey: Wow, that’s crazy.

Jennifer Taggart: It’s insane. It’s insane. And they’re doing challenges. That’s the fun part about it is, it’s this older … J-LO is even on it, and she did a challenge to all this #club50. I saw it over the weekend, and she didn’t work out. And I’m jumping ahead, but one of the other cool features about Tik Tok is they have what they call a duet. And you can duet with someone, and that will increase your followers, or increase your views, and move you up the ladder if you duet with someone. So J-LO put a Tik Tok out to all of the #club50 followers to do a duet with her. And she does a workout, dance move, and you, side-by-side on the screen are dancing with J-LO. And she’s calling it Fit, Fabulous, and 50. And yeah, I don’t even know how many views she had on it, but I need to do mine. But yeah, I mean it’s huge, and that’s another great feature, but physicians are using it also.

Corey: It sounds like it’s really interactive, which is awesome. And I was doing a little bit of research, and I was looking at an article from The New York Times, and there is a couple of physicians that were highlighted in there. They had like 4.2 million views, I think, or likes, or whatever it is. But in talking to you, I know that that’s starting to be the case more and more often. So let’s jump into a couple of examples on ways that these can be used. So let’s say I’ve got a physician in my practice. He’s a little bit younger. he wants to start using this. What’s one way that you’ve seen be successful to jump into Tik Tok, and actually make it work?

Jennifer Taggart: You know what? That brings up a really good point, I think, that deserves some attention to. As these younger physicians are coming into practices, no matter what the specialty is, they’re already using this. There is a #medicalschool. They’re already using it. So bringing them in, and integrating that into your practice, teaching them, that learning curve part of it is eliminated, because they’re probably already on.

Jennifer Taggart: So having some kind of procedures or best practices for your practice in place is probably a really good idea if you’re in recruiting mode and bringing in these younger physicians. You’re going to want to have a conversation about it. You’re going to want to make some guidelines and rules for it, and how you want the physicians and your staff, if you want to use it. Because it’s not a practice platform, although I have seen some practices here lately using it. The jury is still out on the good and the bad of that, but it is more of a personal thing. So it’s something to definitely be aware of if you’re bringing new physicians on that are younger. They are already using it.

Corey: Hey guys, Corey here, cohost of the Dr Marketing Tips podcast and I wanted to interrupt this episode just for a minute to tell you about Insight Training Solutions. So Insight Training Solutions is an ongoing employee engagement and training platform for your medical practice, meaning employees can log on and take these medical practice specific trainings whenever and wherever they are. And each training is meant to increase employee engagement, improve practice reputation, and develop some patient service mindsets. If we’re being honest, something that we all know, some of the employees may lack, not calling anybody out by name, but one of the cool things about Insight Training Solutions is they’re always developing new content.

Corey: And they just released 10 Steps to a Phenomenal Patient Experience, where you’ll learn how to create a phenomenal patient experience, strengthen job security, and discover customer service secrets for your entire team. So this course is in addition to the other ones they already have, which include Communication Across Generations and How to Understand Today’s Multigenerational Workforce, and How to Develop Overall Patient Experience. This is another course, The New Approach to Customer Service. We’ve also got Eight Ways to Wow Patients, and you can sign up for a free trial to see what everything is about at insighttrainingsolutions.io. That’s insighttrainingsolutions.io, or just Google Insight Training Solutions. You’ll be glad you did.

Jennifer Taggart: But I will tell you, going back to your original question, the biggest thing I’m seeing now is a lot of them are using it for education, and best practices. So they are answering the common questions. There was an OB/GYN that put one out talking specifically to teens, knowing that her audience is uncomfortable and embarrassed about asking questions about their menstrual cycle, and how it should work, and how it happens, and what should I pay attention to, and is this normal, should I be feeling pain? She answered all of those questions in a very casual, open trending music, using text box. It wasn’t a verbal thing. She asked questions in these text boxes that you can put on the screen, and then she answered each one of those questions in another text box.

Corey: Yeah. That was something that I saw from some of the examples that were in the webinar that you did, where some of them, it was a little bit longer form, and it seemed like they had a physician just take her time and … no music, and just actually look at the camera, and provide an in depth answer. And then there was other ones where, I don’t know what the case was obviously, but maybe whoever it was wasn’t comfortable going on camera, or speaking. So she just had the text bubbles pop up, and then she would point to it on the beat, and then it would change with an answer. And I thought that was a really cool and fun way to do that.

Jennifer Taggart: And I think when you look at what specifically they’re talking about, if you use this the right way, you target your message, and what you’re talking about in how you deliver your video. So I’ll give you kind of three really good examples, and I use these in the webinar. So one is you have a 30-year-old new mom, or that late 20s, early 30s brand new mom, and the physician got on, and was talking about co-sleeping, and she used a very low tone of voice. She gave very factual information about the pros and the cons, and left it with a, “This is the personal choice with you and your husband, but these are the pros and cons. This is what information is out there. This is a personal choice. I’m not giving you my opinion, I’m giving you the facts.” But she did it talking directly to her audience. That new mom is scared. She doesn’t care about the music, she doesn’t care about your text box. She wants to hear you talk to her in a very personal way, and she made that video very personal.

Corey: Yeah. And just think about, as a user, when you see that and you look at that physician, the amount of trust, and intimacy, and authority that she now has from being able to do that. I mean that’s hard to replicate.

Jennifer Taggart: Exactly. And she leaned into the video, and she made it like you were having a coffee shop conversation between the two of you, between her patient and herself. She was very, very, very smart about how she handled that particular topic. Then you have a general practitioner, who is talking about should you get a flu vaccination or not, and the controversy around it, and just the do’s and don’ts. And she did it with really trending music, because that’s across all genres, all age demographics, and she made it very general. She used trending music. She used text box, and she made it a little bit personal, because it was close up to her face.

Jennifer Taggart: So each audience she targeted with that message that, the teens, do I need to get a flu vaccination? I don’t know. I’m 18. I’m at college. They’re offering free vaccinations at the school. Do I take advantage of that or not? Well, this is my own decision. That 30-year-old mom or 40-year-old, do I need it? Do I not need it? She talked to me, too, because it’s close up to her face, and she was having a conversation with me. And the older folks that are just scrolling through, they’re just reading it, and they’re like, “Oh yeah.” When they hear the music, they may keep scrolling. Instead, they saw the words, so they stopped and paid attention. So she was really smart in how she targeted that type of information to spread across the different age groups that are on this platform.

Corey: Cool, very cool. So at the end of the day, I think that listeners need to take away that Tik Tok is a video sharing social networking service. It’s being used by physicians. There’s a couple of different ways you can use it. You can either be fun and over the top, and do the dance rehearsal, and like that whole thing with a song, or you can be really intimate, and one-on-one, and provide some information that way. Something I know that you touched on in the webinar that I wanted to mention before we sign off is some of the things to consider.

Corey: So, number one would be the security concerns. We’ve all probably seen or heard some of the China talk about how they’re mining data out of the app. So whether that’s true or not, one thing to know at your practice is that, and Jen touched on this earlier, if you have a younger physician, they’re probably already using it, and we know just from poking around in Tik Tok that patients are using it when they’re sitting in the office.

Jennifer Taggar…: And in the waiting rooms.

Corey: So that means that … in the waiting room, yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Taggart: [crosstalk 00:22:19].

Corey: And that means that they’re probably on your WIFI. So if that is a security concern, if you do care about that electronic PHI, you’re going to want to block the app from working on your WIFI, simple things like that. And you kind of touched on it earlier too, Jen, where you said that you need some policies and procedures in place for staff. So if they’re going to post, and you’re going to allow them to post, then do it on their phone, their data, not on your plan.

Jennifer Taggart: And create a hashtag that everybody is using, because if they’re going to be using it, and they’re going to do it, you should reap the rewards of that. So again, that goes back to-

Corey: You might as well leverage it.

Jennifer Taggart: … policies and procedures. Exactly. Same thing with your patients, if you’re going to encourage it, use it to your best advantage.

Corey: Absolutely. And the only other thing I wanted to mention is, you touched on this already too, but Tik Tok can serve as a recruiting tool, not just for physicians, but also for team members. We all know how hard it is to hire and retain really good talent. So if you have a Tik Tok, and you do let some of the personality show through, not only from your staff but from your physicians as well, if there’s people locally that are watching that, not only are they potential patients, but they might be potential employees, and team members, and say, “That looks like a place that I’d really like to work, or I could get along with them.” And they self-screen that way, to an extent, before they even come in for an interview, because they know that they’re going to fit in with that culture, or they’re not, which I think is something that we’re just starting to scratch the surface of. But as this next generation of employee is aging up, like you said earlier, that the average user is a teenager, but the teenagers eventually get jobs, right? So as they age up and they become part of the workforce, it makes sense that this is a potential, anyway, a recruiting tool.

Jennifer Taggart: Yes, absolutely. The other thing I did, before we forget, when we talk about who’s using it, and how to make it beneficial for your practice, not only does it look good that your employees are, “It’s a great place to work. And this is all fun,” your patients … I saw it over the weekend, so that’s why I’m going to bring it up. Because it wasn’t in my webinar, but it was great, and I saved it to use for anyone that wants to do it. It was a patient in the waiting room waiting for their doctor to come in, and when their doctor came in, he also happened to be on Tik Tok, so we knew exactly what the patient was doing.

Jennifer Taggart: So when he walked in, the two of them started dancing. It was great. I don’t know if it was planned, or not planned. The doctor seemed a little bit like he was caught off guard, but then realize what was going on. It was great. It was just posted I think on Valentine’s Day, because the message was Valentine’s Day for my favorite doc, so I think it was Valentine’s Day. And when I saw it on Sunday, it had upwards of 500,000 views already. It was insane, because it was fun.

Corey: That’s really cool., yeah.

Jennifer Taggart: It was fun, but it had a laundry list of hashtags with it, but yeah.

Corey: Right, yeah. And I think that’s one of the other key takeaways, too. So now we know what it is. We’ve heard about some examples, heard about some concerns, and the hashtag thing I think is really important, because that is what allows you to target down, and then really talk to a specific audience. And it kind of seems like it’s the Wild West when it comes to content, right? There’s not a lot of regulations, so you can post whatever you want, obviously as long as it’s HIPAA compliant, you’re not doing anything crazy, but you can go in any direction that you want to. There’s a lot of freedom here, where on some other platforms, like Twitter, it’s just most text space and short. Instagram, you’ve just got the photos. Here, you can kind of combine all of those things together, and use them how you see fit.

Jennifer Taggart: Right, and I think one of the reasons that Tik Tok has become so popular is you can do it for free. Facebook and Instagram, there’s a lot paid advertising.

Corey: That’s a great point.

Jennifer Taggart: It’s very much, there’s a lot of ads. So this younger generation, the younger demo, they don’t want to see the paid ads. They get annoyed by that. This, you can buy ads, but right up front you can say, “Skip Ads.” You can opt out right at the top. And like you said, the hashtags are what drives. The hashtags, and I’m seeing more now, using things that are trending, and Tik Tok gives you all that access. You can create a pro account for free, and it’ll give you all the analytics of who’s looking at who your views are, what demographic they come from, what hashtags are performing, what’s trending. So I’m kind of seeing, yes, they’re still using hashtags, but the more you use the trending now, which they’ll give you everything that’s trending now, if you go to your homepage. If you use that and the hashtags, you can really drill down to your target, and talk to exactly who you want to talk to.

Corey: Yeah, that’s a great point that a lot of the other platforms, there’s just a limited amount of real estate, and so to get any traction you have to pay for it. In here, you don’t, at least not yet.

Jennifer Taggart: Nope, not yet.

Corey: Very cool. All right, so that’s about all the time we have for today. So Jen, thank you again for joining us. Any final parting words?

Jennifer Taggart: Just one. If your physicians are going to get on Tik Tok, make sure that their content is on preventative care, and best practices. Do not diagnose anybody on Tik Tok. And if you get an account on Tik Tok, make sure you follow us at Dr Marketing Tips.

Corey: Awesome. And if you guys are interested in the webinar, we’ve actually got the entire presentation saved as a PDF. So just let us know, and we will send that to you just as fast as we can. So thanks again for tuning into this episode of the Dr Marketing Tips podcast, and we’ll catch you in the next one.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the DrMarketingTips.com podcast. If there’s anything from today’s show you want to learn more about, check out DrMarketingTips.com for our Podcast Resource Center with all the notes, links, and goodies we mentioned during the show. If you’re not already a subscriber to our show, please consider pressing the Subscribe button on your podcast player, so you never miss one of our future episodes. And if you haven’t given us a rating or review yet on iTunes, please find a spare minute and help us reach and educate even more of our medical practice peers. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll catch you next time, doctor’s orders.

Subscribing and Rating Our Podcast

If you like what you heard, please take a few seconds and subscribe, rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts. Here’s how:

Subscribe

To subscribe, click this link to open Apple Podcasts on your computer and then click “Listen on Apple Podcasts ” button next to the artwork. This will redirect to the Apple Podcasts app where you click the “+Subcribe” button on the righthand side.

Ratings and Reviews

To leave us a rating and review, scroll down to the “Ratings and Reviews” section below the episode listings. Then, you can click the button that says “Write a Review” and proceed to give us 5 stars *wink*.

Thank You for Your Support.