The Future of Health Info on YouTube

YouTube recently launched the Health Creator Community, a new initiative designed to support health organizations and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in expanding their YouTube channels.

In this article we explore what it is and how it may influence the global pharma media space.

YouTube’s Health Creator Community

This program offers several key features:

• Monthly Virtual Sessions: These sessions feature updates from YouTube Health and engaging fireside chats with popular health creators. These provide insights into the latest trends and strategies in health content creation.
• Informative Newsletters: Participants receive regular newsletters with product updates, health content trends, and best practices for creating engaging and accurate health content. These newsletters help keep creators informed and equipped with the tools and techniques.
• Networking Opportunities: The community offers a platform for like-minded health creators and organizations to connect, share ideas, and collaborate on projects. This network fosters a sense of camaraderie and support among health content creators.

As the global pharmaceutical media industry learns about this new program, it is important to consider its implications and potential actions to navigate this evolving landscape effectively.

Tackling Health Misinformation

Health misinformation has surged in significance over the past five years. With an increasingly self-educated public taking pride in accessing and controlling their health information autonomously, the accuracy of online content has become both essential and increasingly complex. YouTube, with its vast audience and policy of (relative) content freedom, plays a significant role in disseminating health information. This creation of a verified, credentialed, and accredited list of health creators is a positive move by YouTube to enhance the credibility of health information on its platform.

Ensuring Credentialing Integrity

A potential concern, however, is the strength of credentialing within YouTube Health. Traditional HCP platforms invest heavily in double verification of HCPs, ensuring high-quality audience data, targeting, and engagement. While YouTube Health’s approach is different, it is vital to maintain a similar level of rigor in verifying HCPs within the creator community. Implementing robust guardrails to prevent unauthorized access and ensuring that only qualified health professionals are part of the creator community will help maintain the credibility and reliability of health information on the platform.

Influence on Established Health Channels

If the YouTube Health Creator Community is a success, and they develop a quorum of health organizations and HCPs, they will undoubtedly influence the existing balance of health information’s distribution on the platform.

Established health channels, such as the Mayo Clinic (1.1 million subscribers), Cleveland Clinic (533k subscribers), and Medscape (250k subscribers), have built their brands, trust, and content libraries over many years. These channels have harnessed health creators for their own platforms, and whilst those leading HCP creators may have had their own audiences, the focus was likely on building the organization’s channel.

How will this dynamic shift when there is an increasing number of confident, audience-building HCPs looking to build their own channels?

It is noted that the Creator Community is open to both organizations and HCPs, and it will be interesting to see how the established organizations lean into this, and we are sure that there is plenty of partnership opportunities opening up as a result.

Dr Mike has amassed 12million subscribers on YouTube, and is a leading figure across various media outlets. (YouTube page here)

The Rise of HCP Influencers

HCP influencers have rapidly gained prominence in recent years, providing content that resonates both with patients and their peers. This is nothing new in general, as we have had TV, internet doctors, and industry thought leaders for many years. What is changing is the volume, breadth, and speed of content delivered from these HCPs.

Leaning into the media habits of the majority of human beings, short-form video content trumps all… and this Creator Community may fuel this growth. With peer-to-peer conversations being a consistently high driver of clinical decisions, this should not be underestimated.  Pharma brands may adapt their marketing strategies to increasingly seek partnerships with these HCP influencers.

The key facets of any good influencer / brand relationship are trust, authenticity, and longevity, so selecting the right HCPs and brand partnership will be critical.

Conclusion

YouTube Health has been a valuable source of democratized global health information, and the Health Creator Community initiative seeks to add to this mission.

This initiative has the potential to impact both how established media platforms produce and distribute their digital content, these organizations partnerships with HCPs creators, and how pharma brands harness all these audiences within their marketing.

This YouTube Health Creator Community initiative is undoubtedly a ‘sign of the times’ in which we live, and we looking forward to seeing how this initiative evolves and benefits the global health community.