Given the recent changes on Twitter, there are growing concerns about reliability, brand safety, and suitability for healthcare marketing. In the healthcare communications industry, brands and marketers who work with sensitive topics are concerned about protecting their brand image and safety. However, these changing market conditions provide incredible opportunities for growth and exceptional media experiences, especially for marketers who are not yet leveraging social media platforms to their full ability.
Prioritize Safer Social Platforms
For the time being, we recommend shifting short term marketing spend to Meta and TikTok, which have been increasingly transparent about their initiatives to enhance and protect brand safety for their users. TikTok announced its Inventory Filter earlier this year, which empowers advertisers with more control over the type of content that can be shown next to their ads on the platform. Similarly, Meta released updates to allow advertisers to control the feed content adjacent to their ads, depending on their brand’s safety risk tolerance. Meta also recently earned accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its content-level brand safety on Facebook.
Build a Privacy-Focused Social Strategy
Additionally, marketers should use these changes as an opportunity to explore additional capabilities and safety layers outside of native social platforms to boost their campaign performance and improve brand experience. For example, leveraging better quality datasets that have built-in consent and privacy will allow your brands to confidently reach healthcare professionals (HCPs) and consumer audiences who are receptive to media and who actually need the information. Audience quality is apparent through match rates and what we call active reach, referring to individuals who are actually addressable with media via your chosen channels. When you activate a high-quality audience on social, you can expect to see higher engagement rates such as video plays and clicks because you're engaging with users who are relevant and more likely to be interested in your brands.
Native audience capabilities on social platforms can seem like an easy way to find an audience but generally result in lower match rates, especially for clinical and healthcare audiences. In a recent case study, we found that Meta’s first-party audiences only reached about 21% of the brand’s target audience. Additionally, Meta recently removed Detailed Targeting options relating to healthcare topics, so marketers now have to work even harder to find their target audiences through the platform.
How to Get the Most Out of Social in Healthcare Marketing
Reaching the right audiences in a brand-safe manner doesn’t need to be complicated. In the same case study mentioned above, our modeled audiences (based on the same criteria from Meta’s now deprecated first-party audiences) reached 98% of the brand’s target audience, generating unparalleled reach for the brand. The improved audience data also boosted campaign performance with a 35.7% increase in ThruPlays compared to Meta, meaning we reached a more qualified and engaged audience.
We believe that high-quality audience data is essential to all successful healthcare campaigns. That's why we built Lasso to be platform agnostic, so marketers can leverage our audiences as they activate across any social platform. Additionally, we developed our own Identity Solution, so we could maintain data reliability and consistency in-house, allowing our users to rest assured that they are reaching 85-95% of their target audiences at a minimum, especially when the industry standard for clinical audiences is much lower. This infrastructure allows us to achieve unmatched speed-to-activation, which is as close to instantaneous in this industry as possible, making audiences ready for use on social platforms in less than 24 hours. Plus, on top of the brand safety initiatives Meta and TikTok have already implemented, we provide additional layers of guaranteed brand safety, so marketers can focus on getting their media in front of those who need it most.
What This Means For Marketers
For marketers already incorporating social media in their marketing strategy, a temporary pivot from Twitter to Meta or TikTok is an easy way to continue engaging target HCPs and consumers in a brand-safe manner. For marketers who are not yet leveraging social media to their full ability, there are still a lot of untapped opportunities even with the current instability on Twitter.
One sector that could see a lot of growth from an expansion of media strategy into social media is hospitals and health systems. The US News and World Report season presents a perfect opportunity to further engage and reach providers across new channels. Incorporating Meta’s platforms allows for a supplementary touchpoint with physicians and is a great addition to an existing email or digital campaign. One great way to do this is by leveraging engagement on your existing email campaigns to trigger subsequent social ads. For example, if a provider opens or clicks on your email blast, you can use Lasso Triggers™ to prompt a Facebook ad based on that behavior. Social media is a powerful addition to any healthcare marketing strategy, especially when marketers prioritize high-quality audiences and brand safety to maximize their efforts.
Adapt Quickly to Changing Market Conditions
Frequent market changes can provide great opportunities for brands and marketers to grow their strategy on different social platforms. To maximize the impact of every marketing dollar and create the best possible brand experience, we recommend exploring additional audience capabilities and safety layers, such as those that Lasso provides, so you can adapt quickly to changing conditions. When the market shifts towards one platform over another, we will always be platform agnostic and ready to provide our data for activation on any social platform. Get started today by reaching out to your Lasso Representative or email us at sales@lassomarketing.io.
