How many times have you gone to the doctor’s office and felt compelled to post a photo of the waiting room on your Instagram Story? For most people, the answer is likely never. Then again, most people’s doctor’s offices probably don’t have 52k+ followers on Instagram.
Tia, a growing women’s healthcare network (both IRL and virtual) founded in 2017, was designed for the ✨whole you✨, from physical care to mental health to gynecology. It charges patients a membership fee to join and access its services.
Perhaps it was also designed with social media in mind. The waiting and exam rooms are complete with houseplants, bookshelves with feminist literature, and geometric prints. It’s a far cry from the washed-out pastel palette and old Highlights and Men’s Health magazines found in many a doctor’s office.
“I can’t tell you another example of a doctor’s office where people share and post on social media about their visit,” Deborah Singer, SVP, marketing and communications at Tia, told Marketing Brew.
“We see every day [that] women are taking photos and videos of their visits to Tia,” Singer continued. “They’re sharing it with their friends. They’re putting in their group texts. They’re posting it on Instagram and on TikTok.”
That behavior inspired Singer and her team to craft the brand’s first coordinated influencer marketing campaign. In total, Tia worked with seven influencers to not only promote its Soho office that opened in September but also help it spread the word about the company’s mission and growth. It will work with seven more to promote its new Williamsburg, Brooklyn, office in November.
Squad goals
Tia has clinics in a few major cities, such as LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix. But its first clinic opened up in New York’s Flatiron neighborhood in 2019. Since then, Singer said, it’s been “bursting at the seams” with patients, inspiring Tia to open two more clinics in NYC.
The campaign had two aims: To inform people about the new clinics opening and educate them about what Tia actually is.
“We did the thing with this campaign that you’re not supposed to do and had two goals versus one,” Singer joked.
All influencers were paid monetarily, although Singer declined to share figures.
Of the seven influencers, about half were existing members, according to Singer. For those who were not existing members, Singer said they each became members and experienced Tia as a patient before creating and posting content to keep things authentic.
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Singer told us that on the hunt for influencers, the main goal was to find creators that felt authentic for the brand. “We start with our members, then go one degree wider—which ends up being a lot of micro- and nano-influencers. We’ve found that these creators really resonate with our audience and are effective ambassadors for the Tia experience,” Singer said.
Some of those creators included New York-based people, such as @tonedwitheiryn (4k Instagram followers) and @madsmaley (69.6k).
Influencers created the content for their personal pages on TikTok and Instagram. In some cases, Tia reposted said content on its own accounts. Tia also put some paid spend behind some of the influencer’s posts (like this one) that were “performing well organically,” per Singer.
While TikTok and Instagram were the main platforms for this campaign, Singer said that the team is exploring future influencer content on YouTube and even Pinterest. Additionally, some additional Tia members were featured in a corresponding OOH campaign.
The influencer is calling from inside the house
Singer went into this effort knowing the company already had some nano- and micro-influencers in its Rolodex. “We did a first pass through our member base looking to identify micro- and nano-influencers,” Singer told us.
Within that Rolodex, the team found influencers like Nina Haines (who has 7.7k followers on Instagram and 50.5k followers on TikTok). Haines and other influencers did video tours of Tia’s new Soho clinic.
In Haines’s video, which includes a discount code, she described her past “scary” experiences with doctor’s offices and talked about why she feels better about going to the doctor now that she’s found Tia.
The company has “community rooms” in each of its clinics for members to gather in. Being that Singer knew Tia’s existing members often hear about the company through word of mouth, the team decided to invite influencers to host their own communities in these rooms.
Haines, for instance, was invited to host her book club in a Tia community room. Another influencer is hosting a journaling workshop.
Currently, influencers make up roughly 10% of Tia’s total marketing budget, Singer said, but she expects this percentage to grow based on the results it’s seeing so far.
“It’s too early to share any membership growth or brand-awareness results given the Soho clinic just opened,” Singer said, but she noted that this campaign “has been some of the top performing content on our social media.”