We often discuss social media and how to effectively use it to market your practice. But we also discuss how social media influences the procedures and treatments that patients are looking for. Since the start of the pandemic, there is a social platform that has become increasingly popular, and specifically has influenced the aesthetics industry. Yup, you guessed it: TikTok.
If you don’t already know, TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that contains a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from 15 seconds to one minute. Users range from teenagers to grandmas, and everyone in between.
To give you an idea of how popular the aesthetics industry has become on this platform, #plasticsurgery has over 6.8 billion views, #botox has over 1 billion views, #Babybotox has 6.1 million views, and #nosejob has over 1.6 billion views.
What Does This Mean For You and Your Practice?
Well, a number of things.
- You could potentially use TikTok to your advantage. Many Plastic Surgeons and Aesthetic Practitioners are using TikTok to help market their practice. They use it for educational purposes, transparency into procedures, or just to post funny videos. Some practitioners use it to educate their audiences on what is actually possible and what to expect with certain procedures and what recovery looks like.
- Following trends on social media can help you understand what your patients are looking for and what they’re expecting. For example, a trend went viral on TikTok called “Nose Job Check” where users were showing their before and after nose jobs. So you may see an influx of patients looking to fix their noses, solely based on what they’re seeing on social platforms and how influenced they may be to make a change. Following these trends can also help you set expectations with your patients. They may be expecting something they saw on social media or in a celebrity and you have to be prepared to manage what they can expect.
- TikTok and other social media platforms are offering a lot of transparency into the aesthetics world. While patients and celebrities used to be “hush-hush” about the work they have had done, it’s now something that people are talking about openly. Chalk it up to a number of things including the accelerated importance of “self-care.” While this might not directly affect you or your practice, it definitely affects the industry as more and more people are looking to have cosmetic work done.
With that being said, if you want to see what all the hype around TikTok is about, I wish you good luck. Try not to spend 4 hours watching random videos of cats talking, grandmas dancing, and DIY trends. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.