TikTok: A Guide for Healthcare Marketers 

Where is TikTok now?  

TikTok continues to surge forward and evolve as a culturally relevant, influential platform, with 990B monthly video views driven by its 178M monthly active users, and an almost constant presence in news and culture. TikToks are also continuously shared across all other major social platforms, dramatically increasing their reach. Around 55% of TikTok users are women, and almost half of all users are aged 35+, demonstrating how the platform has grown since the early days of the pandemic. 

The ongoing proliferation of HCPs using the app has truly established the platform as a credible source of healthcare information, and in the last couple of years, this trend has continued with the ongoing rise of healthcare influencers, solidifying TikTok’s healthcare credentials. As more Millennial and Gen Z digital natives become HCPs, this will only continue.  

The app has reshaped the way social media users communicate and consume content across all verticals, shifting the most consumed type of content towards short-form vertical video, as well as serving as a key search tool, particularly amongst Gen Z users. This has created an ongoing, evolving digital landscape for advertisers to explore in order to cut through the noise and reach their intended audience where they are, in the way they like to be reached. This is especially true for pharma. 

Healthcare professionals continue to change the culture of healthcare 

HCPs spend about 3 hours a day watching online video content for educational purposes. In the current consumer landscape, healthcare professionals active on TikTok play a key role in how patients are both discovering new products and connecting with doctors and nurses via video content.  

According to the FSMB Census of Licensed Physicians there has been an increase of 16% between 2021 and 2024 for physicians that are 49 years or younger, indicating that doctors are getting younger. In 5 years, 75% of the HCP community will be digital natives, composed of millennials and Gen Zs who are increasingly leveraging social media as part of their professional journeys. 

Doctors and nurses are leveraging the platform as a tool to drive education and awareness from preventive care to chronic illnesses. Their medical and social media expertise allows them to engage in a unique and creative way with patients making a meaningful impact in their lives by sharing resources and tools, and encouraging users to seek help when the need arises.  

Over the last 2-3 years more pharmaceutical brands have entered the space, promoting disease state education and branded content to highly qualified and relevant audiences, and creating partnerships with influencer healthcare professionals, all driving strong engagement on the platform.  

TikTok as a search engine 

Consumers, primarily Gen Z, are redefining search trends, and TikTok is emerging as one of the top search tools. Around half of Americans use TikTok as a search engine, according to a recent Adobe study, most notably with 49% of Millennials and 64% of Gen Z. When using TikTok as a search engine, 22% of searches are related to health tips.  

TikTok has completely changed the way younger generations are thinking about search by helping them find short-form videos to answer their queries instead of long-form YouTube videos or word-based responses on Google. (For more on this, see our POV here.) TikTok recently rolled out—and is still enhancing the offering of—ads in the search placement, allowing advertisers to capitalize on the platform’s user behavior and have messaging show up where users are spending much of their time. 

While advertising on TikTok has until now primarily focused on video content served in users’ feeds, it is important for advertisers to learn to utilize TikTok to address search intent, as the platform is becoming a powerful discovery tool. 

Consumers are leveraging TikTok as a search engine for the following reasons: 

• Short video format is informative and digestible 
• Content is personalized 
• Curates diverse perspectives and ideas 
• Offers sense of community and interaction 
• Offers more user reviews and experiences 

The preference for firsthand accounts is likely why users rate TikTok highly for expertise and experience. 

How healthcare marketers can leverage TikTok 

It’s important to note that the same kind of targeting used on other non-endemic social platforms can also be used on TikTok, both for patients and HCPs. Native targeting is available, as is the ability to upload custom audiences (e.g. qualified patient audiences or verified HCP audience such as a specialty, diagnosing behavior, and matched target lists). 

Keeping in mind that TikTok focuses on full-screen, vertical video with sound-on design, Pharma brands can approach TikTok advertising in three ways, taking a crawl-walk-run kind of approach:  

• Repurposing: While not the ideal approach, repurposing existing assets from other platforms to fit TikTok specs can be considered as an entry level way to start testing messaging on the platform with minimal creative lift. Although this can speed up time to market, make legal approvals more straightforward, and allow your brand to gain initial learnings more quickly, this approach likely would not maximize potential performance on the platform 
• Custom creative: A preferred approach is to develop custom creative, specifically designed for the platform. Every social platform has its own “language” and style – content that works well on X might not perform as strongly on Instagram, Reddit posts would not resonate on Facebook, etc. TikTok content has a specific look and feel, and users expect certain characteristics in the content they view there – they want to see TikToks, not ads, which means the best use of the platform is to create content that fits well there. This has a higher creative lift with the need for custom assets, and therefore a longer lead time to market, but with advanced planning this is the recommended approach 
• Partnering with creators: The third way is to partner with creators and/or influencers on the platform, an approach that would work for patient/caregiver and HCP audiences. This can help with bringing greater authenticity to content, given that creators know their audiences, the platform, and the type of content that would appeal to them, which generally helps boost performance and engagement 

In all cases, a compelling Call to Action (CTA) continues to be an essential tool for brands to leverage, to guide their users, drive conversions, and provide clarity on their journey. TikTok currently offers twenty-two different CTA options.  

Offerings for advertisers 

TikTok continues to evolve, adjusting their platform to support brands’ advertising objectives, including testing long-form videos up to an hour in duration. Advertisers can now leverage full funnel marketing solutions with objectives like reach (awareness), traffic, video views, conversions, lead gen, and app installs.  

There are now numerous formats to run paid ads for branded and unbranded content across DTC and HCP audiences. 

• Diversion ads – no profile needed, vertical videos designed for sound-on can be up to 10 mins long, with 5 link outs (using the disclaimer add-on) 
• Spark ads – boosted organic content, profile required, 90 seconds 

• Branded Mission – Crowdsource authentic content from creators on TikTok, boost top-performing videos as ads, and drive brand equity 
• Branded Effect – Create a custom effect that engages TikTok users across the globe 
• Top view – Make an impact in-feed with the first ad a user sees when they open the app 
• Search Placement – as mentioned earlier, this is a growing placement on the platform 
• TikTok Pulse Suite – offers a variety of opportunities to have your content displayed next to the top 4% content on the platform 

Potential restrictions on TikTok in the United States 

President Joe Biden signed a bill on April 23rd to ban TikTok from the United States unless ByteDance sells the platform (and its audience and algorithm) to a non-Chinese company within a nine-to-twelve month period after the law goes into effect. Such a ban would impact 170 million users in the United States.  

While it will be important to proactively evaluate alternate tactics if the app is banned, that moment could still be a long way off, as TikTok and ByteDance have already filed a challenge against the legislation, citing a potential First Amendment violation. There are also rumors that TikTok is developing a US-only version of its algorithm that would be entirely separate from the main ByteDance algorithm. 

TikTok is full steam ahead 

Despite the political uncertainties, TikTok is showing no signs of slowing down, with new ad solutions and a future focus on AI capabilities. Most recently, TikTok rolled out Symphony, its AI-driven creative solution for advertisers. With Symphony, advertisers can create AI-generated content, including video, with few inputs, that would be optimized for TikTok consumption and trends. 

CMI continues to partner closely with TikTok and explore new opportunities for pharma with brand safety top of mind. Brands active on the platform that are seeing success can continue to stay the course and those that are considering activation can safely move forward. TikTok continues to have powerful reach and engagement, and remains an excellent strategic choice for patient and professional campaigns.