MED•FLUENCER | medical personnel who participate in influencer marketing. I am a medical doctor and I have been in influencer marketing for the past 5 years. Funnily enough, I never aimed to be a medfluencer. I don’t even think the term existed when I started. Medfluencing has definitely gained notoriety now.
When I embarked upon my influencer journey, I did not initially plan to say a word about medicine. I was experiencing so many academic challenges 2nd year of med school and I just needed a break—an outlet to help me deal with my daily reality. Yes, that’s despite my social platform name. How many of y’all have been around since my @dr_bazz days? Y’all are real ones.
I initially started off talking about my love for fashion, natural hair, and city living: how to wear color, the brands I enjoy, my wish list wardrobe items, my top hair products, how to cornrow, my favorite things to do in Atlanta, restaurant recs, life as a single in the city. It was not until Almost Didn’t MD that I really started to open up and pour out about my journey as a medical doctor. And you know what? I’m so glad I set my platform up this way and with this time sequence.
Sharing my journey and encouraging other students is extremely important to me. Every time a student lets me know they passed an exam or won an appeal, I have a heart full of gratitude. THAT is a huge part of my platform—one that now I’ve introduced, I would never take away. Still, my goal with SAC has always been to create genuine connections with brands I’ve been using for years and to, ultimately, scale my platform to a viable business. Over the past 5 years, I have done just that and I do believe initially introducing my audience to Anya outside the medicine has helped.
I showed up talking about multiple interests and marketed myself as someone who could organically engage my audience in all things fashion, beauty, and lifestyle. With the content I posted, I alerted brands I do not pigeonhole myself…and neither should they. That helped and served me tremendously. I find that oftentimes, medfluencers are expected to speak predominately—if not exclusively—about their careers in medicine: how to get into XYZ school, how to pass exams, day in the life insight, non-personalized medical advice. All of those topics are of great importance and I’m so glad social media allows us to have the information at our fingertips. I post about all of those things…but I’m also gonna hit you with how to wear color flawlessly, things to do in NYC, and my natural hair care regimen. The fact that I can also have dialogue about women’s health, a non-traditional path toward becoming a physician, and failing forward—to me—is a bonus. Approximately 95% of my brand deals have nothing to do with medicine at all. In my experience, there are few medically-based companies out there actually engaging influencers. There are even fewer that want to pay us for our services.
I was recently asked how I get brand deals consistently. It’s definitely a fair question to ask with my modest following of 13K on Instagram. It comes down to this: I pitch brands weekly. I don’t wait for them to come to me. I go to them. This year, I have had more incoming opportunities than yes’s to my pitch emails. I send my emails weekly anyway. Even if I get a no or no response at all, brands talk. PR firms talk. Behind the scenes, folks may be sharing my info amongst each other. Something is happening because I’m just about half way to my financial goal at the half mark of the year. I’m also consistent. I make time for my craft. I take my 1-2 days off per week to plan outfits, captions, blog posts, fashion inspo pictographs. I treat my content creation like it’s my job and now it is. Most weeks, I post 5 times on multiple platforms: Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok and shop.LTK. This shows brands I have the bandwidth to keep my audience engaged and my post for them won’t flop because of inactivity on the social platform at hand. I invest in myself. I spend $$$ on photography and videography. I shoot once a week or every other week depending on my schedule. I do not outsource anything except photography and videography. I always want my brand to represent my voice. Plus, I’m too Type A to delegate anything else right now. SAC is my baby that I built from the ground up and I want things done in a very specific way.
I charge what my work is worth. My number takes into consideration social follower count, professional photography/videography, editing tools and technology, access to my audience, use of my brand name, and time logged creating content, creating copy, editing content, posting content, and engaging with my audience. The more I thought about my response to the inquiry on how I obtain brand deals, I came to realize how I market myself plays a major role too. I present myself as a colorful fashion gworl, living it up (or at least trying) in the Big Apple, sprinkling my fashion, beauty, and lifestyle recs along the way. Oh and, by the way, I happen to be a doctor who loves women’s health and wants to ensure Black docs in training and non-traditional students win! Again, I never pigeonholed myself. And neither should you.
Medfluencing is a wonderful thing. And depending on your goals for your platform, it may be the only thing. That is perfectly ok. Because other medfluencers often ask me “how to” questions, I wanted to share my thoughts from the perspective of a doctor who did not initially market myself as such. Sure, I’ll use the hashtag. Yes, I’m part of that creator community. My content is just not exclusive to that category. Medical personnel are absolutely necessary on social platforms and contribute greatly to the richness and edification therein. So many social media consumers receive information they would otherwise not be able to access all because of the generosity of medfluencers. All I’m saying is don’t forget YOU. It’s more than ok to deviate from the “norm” and talk about your other interests. Show folks we providers are multidimensional, complex, Renaissance humans. And depending on your goals, show those brands too.
For more on the business of blogging, be sure to check out these posts! And for those who love FIGS, discount codes are back! Use code AnyaBFirstFIGS for 20% off your first purchase! I’m wearing the XL on top and bottom. Until next time! Fellow colleagues, I’m rooting for y’all!
xx,
Photos by Sweetie Mensah
Preset by Tina Smith
