Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.

Bill Klaproth (Host): On this edition of the SHSMD Podcast, it's another SHSMD Connections preview for you, people. Let me ask you this, have you ever thought about using micro-influencers to help humanize your brand, build credibility, grow your service lines? What's that you say, Bill? What? What? What are you talking about, micro-influencers? Well, if you have that question, we have the perfect session for you. Brittany Strum from Olmsted Medical Center is going to do a great session on micro-influencers. Micro might sound small, but they can play a big part in your marketing. So, let's get to Brittany right now.

This is the SHSMD podcast, rapid insights for healthcare strategy professionals and planning, business development, marketing, communications, and public relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. With me is Brittany Strum. She is here. She is ready to go. She is the Director of Marketing and Business Relations at Olmsted Medical Center, as we talk about her session, Micro-influencers Versus Brand Podcasts: Humanizing Health Brands and Build Authentic Partnerships, The Pelvis Party approach. More on that coming up.

Brittany is speaking on this topic during the 2025 SHSMD Connections Conference October 12th through the 14th. Make sure you get yourself registered right now to see great sessions like this. Brittany, welcome.

Brittany Strum: Hi, Bill. Thank you so much for having me.

Host: It is great to talk with you. I'm so interested to hear about this and the pelvis party approach, of course. But before we get to that, can you first explain to us what are micro-influencers ?

Brittany Strum: Sure. Micro-influencers, you probably think of the word influencer and your brain might connect that to social media and that would be correct. Micro-influencer, there are different levels, and micro, smaller is what you would think of, so anybody on social media having around 10 to 12K followers. And then, they go to macro and mega, but we're going to focus on micro, because that's what we're working with.

Host: Okay. So, 10K to 12K followers, that's basically a micro-influencer.

Brittany Strum: Correct.

Host: So, where do you find these micro-influencers? Do they have to be local in your market?

Brittany Strum: That's the best approach, working locally within your market because they're going to reach your niche or your target audience, and you can find them on a variety of different platforms. It depends on what you're wanting to focus on, whether that's Instagram or TikTok or Facebook.

Host: Wow, this is really, really interesting. All right. So let me ask you this. Why do you feel micro-influencers are more effective at connecting with niche audiences?

Brittany Strum: Because they already know their audience and they have some kind of niche following already. So, think of influencers on Instagram, TikTok, who have a following around food or cooking, or different brands. They create loyalty and they will give genuine recommendations, which is like their endorsement of a trusted brand, of whatever they might be trying to market, or sometimes they don't even sell anything or they're not actually working with a paid advertiser. And they're just genuinely giving their recommendation of a product.

Host: Okay. So, 10 to 12K followers generally on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook. As you said, people know their audience. Do you go out and find these people yourselves, or there's not like a database of "I'm going to find a micro-influencer where I live"? I mean, you have to be on social media following people and actively looking for people that could potentially be a micro-influencer. Would that be right or no?

Brittany Strum: I think there's two approaches to it, Bill. One is where, yes, you're actively looking for those relationships and partnerships because you might not be aware of who is an influencer or. Another word for it would be a connector within your market. Or the second approach would be an existing relationship, whether that's for like my health system, a very active patient sharing their experiences with our services, then we can go from there and seek out what, maybe a paid relationship as an influencer would look like.

Host: Okay. And so, organic obviously would be probably the best, somebody that's already engaging with you. So let's talk about the pelvis party then. What inspired the creation of the pelvis party what is it and how did this address sensitive health topics?

Brittany Strum: The Pelvis Party evolved out of a Zoom educational series that we had been producing at the height of COVID, actually, because we wanted to educate and inform during a very high intense time for the world, right? But specifically within our market and address some very serious questions and concerns.

When I joined the organization, that series in partnership with an already existing advertising partner in our market, which exclusively at the time was an online type blog offering focused on local resources, guides to parenting, parks, camps, et cetera, you name it. They were kind of that go-to destination.

Before COVID, we were strictly advertising on that platform, and then we moved to this educational type series, video series/podcasting, more focused on video at the time. Again, when I joined, I looked at the video series website data, and we weren't really seeing the anticipated results that we would've liked, maybe 80 to 100 viewers. And that's not great, right? When you talk about you're paying for something, and you're expecting viewership and you're not getting it.

So after an evaluation, I just felt it was really important to specifically have conversations around diverse health topics. And so, met with advertising partner and one of our clinicians who's very involved in the pelvis party, and we brainstormed like three friends. We were literally sitting in a coffee shop. And we're like, "How are we going to reach women to open up to talk about these real life issues?" And so, we formed the Pelvis Party. We gave it a catchy name, and we wanted people to have access to some of our healthcare experts. And talk about what can be oftentimes the most intimate topics that have been so taboo to talk about or the things that you just don't want to utter out loud. For example, some of the things I've heard from other women are like, "I went to the gym last week. I picked up a jump rope. I haven't done that in a while, and I felt a gush. What is that?" or, "Gosh, I'm not sleeping at night, or my mood has been really off. Why am I always feeling this way?" Women with these experiences, they're our friends, our family, our colleagues, and they shouldn't be embarrassed or ashamed to talk about these sensitive things, and they deserve a space to share those experiences and, in return, get factual medical answers to what's going on, and that's what the pelvis party is.

Host: So, does the influencer then talk to your physicians to get the credible information, as you say, "How does it roll out? How does the micro-influencer integrate with you to get that message out?

Brittany Strum: Yes. So, the influencer in this case is our partially advertising partner, and one of our strongest, most fierce patients. She's been a patient with us for more than 20 years, and she just happens to be the owner of that blog platform that I had mentioned. And so, we spun the relationship, and made it into more of an influencer type contract. ,I guess you could say. So, we're kind of talking about two things. We're talking about podcasting and we're talking about influencers, and somehow we just kind of found the perfect mesh of both.

Host: So, she, on her social media channels, will bring up these sensitive health topics. Is that right?

Brittany Strum: That's correct. She was doing it on her personal pages before, and then we brought it to the professional platforms that she already owns and advertises with businesses.

Host: So she'll throw out a question like, "When I went to the gym, I started jumping a rope and I gushed, what is that?" "Well, Here's what it is, here's what's happening." She explains it then? And then, how does she revert it back to you at Olmstead?

Brittany Strum: Yeah. So now, we do the podcast. It's more of a video series that we haven't taken to podcast platform yet. But those are where the questions come up. They're about 15-minute episodes. We have an expert on the show, typically our Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Richards. And then, sometimes we bring other experts on depending on what questions we're fielding from the audience, what they want to know about. So, maybe a perimenopause expert.

Host: Okay. So, your influencer is basically interviewing your physicians then, but she's already got this platform. She's already got a following of 10K to 12K. So, you've already got a built-in audience that wants to hear from her. So now, she's talking to the experts at Olmsted. So, it's a connection there.

Brittany Strum: Right. And she's sharing her own real life experiences. And at times, I'm on the show and I share my experiences. So, we bring in the actual conversations that we're having with our friends or that we're hearing from our friends to make the show more interesting.

Host: I love it. So, it's basically then on a video podcast platform, in other words?

Brittany Strum: Right.

Host: Okay, got it. Wow. This is really, really cool. And it sounds like you're really able to do this with limited resources, but achieve broad engagement. Is that right?

Brittany Strum: Yeah, I have an extremely small team, so I knew initially until I was able to really make a case for the Pelvis Party to either expand or do something different with that. I wouldn't be able to do this internally. So, that's where the partnership with an existing advertising partner was really valuable, and helped increase our reach with minimal dollars. So, I leaned into that, and I took the marketing budget that I was already spending with that partner on the online advertising aspect and redirected it solely to this project.

Host: Okay. Got it. I'm just curious, what platform is she on? What platform do you do this on, social media platform?

Brittany Strum: They roll out to YouTube first. That's kind of like our home hub for the information. And then, there's a landing page on their resource site. And then, from there, it's on Instagram and Facebook.

Host: Wow. This is really, really cool. So when you're looking for a micro-influencer, for somebody listening to the podcast, are there certain things they should look for, brittany, now that you have experience and you've done this before, and are doing it right now, I should say?

Brittany Strum: Yeah. For us, our experience was it had to be a patient that had multiple encounters with our health system and someone who was well-connected to our market and, specifically, well-known and well-connected to women in the market. For another brand, it might look a little different depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Maybe you're actually going to start a real podcast and you want to market new services so you identify a patient involved in the community that would be willing to have a new service with you if it's something you haven't offered in the market. Or maybe another approach would be it's an expert or a doctor clinician, nurse in a particular service line within your system that you would like to market and have that expert share within their sphere of influence, a patient that could be identified for the show? I think there are a lot of different approaches. And one thing I would reiterate is like through this process is a lot of creativity and brainstorming and trying to figure out what's going to work.

Host: Yeah. So, I like how you said you sat around with other women and you talked about this and you came up with a great name, the Pelvis Party. And you thought, how are we going to engage women? And you got very creative with it, like you just said, how do you do this without being over-salesy or over-commercially?

Brittany Strum: To come at it with an authentic lens right, is really important because it needs to stay-- I feel you have the term, right? We've all heard it as marketers or communicators like to stay on brand. So, you don't want to go outside the scope of your brand. So if your brand won't support a concept like Pelvis Party, which, Bill, if I'm being honest, I was really scared at the launch of it.

Host: Like, "Is this going to go over well?" Right. "What are people going to think of this?" Yeah.

Brittany Strum: Yeah. And it was like something we hadn't tried before. It was new. But in the end, it was a risk worth taking. I think another thing that brings authenticity would be tying it to something that you're already marketing something, an overarching brand campaign. Because for my health system, women's health specific messaging is an undertone to what we do. So, it was very on brand for us. And in hindsight, I probably could have built that out a little bit more in the strategy. And it's just kind of unfolded organically. But for example, one message for our brand is be selfish. It's an empowering message that we want women to be selfish to take care of themselves so they can take care of the other loved ones in their lives, whether that's a friend, coworker, or family. And it's like our internal check to make sure that we stay within our brand integrity and voice.

Host: So now, you've got me thinking of the whole health system. How do you scale micro-influencers across different service lines or demographics? Would you need a different micro-influencer for each service line if you wanted to do this?

Brittany Strum: For us, we've been thinking about, one, we started with women's health, but how does the Pelvis Party apply to other service lines? Could it apply to Orthopedics? And would we need different influencers? And we've already done that if you take a look at some of our episodes. Let's say, pelvis party makes you think of pelvic health issues maybe, but we've brought on two other influencers, and not paid. But they were going through a surrogacy journey with Olmsted Medical Center and brought them on to share their story and their why, and it was really, really powerful. I think it is scalable and it could go in a lot of different directions, again, depending on what your strategy and focus is for your system.

Host: Right. So, you would bring potentially a new micro-influencer for a different service line over to your advertising partner, your advertising agency, that's kind of assembling the videos and whatnot, and then just kind of recreate the campaign that way.

Brittany Strum: Yeah. And we are using the word micro-influencer, Bill, but another word for, it could be your patient champion. And these don't have to be-- when you talk about budget and resources, not everything has to be a paid relationship. If you have people who are really enthusiastic about your brand or their customer experience with you, they're going to want to share that. I think where the budget and resources comes into play is depending on whether you're doing podcast, video, et cetera, is the production, hosting, and then distribution.

Host: Yep. Absolutely. Well, I like that term patient champion, and you used connector earlier. So Brittany, of course, people always want to know, well, what's the ROI? What's the return on investment? How do you measure those types of things?

Brittany Strum: If you're distributing on social media, which you should be, that's a lot of platforms where people are engaging and finding information. We look at views, engagement metrics around likes, commenting. We have a hub for our content specifically on a landing page where all of the episodes are listed. And we track various metrics using website clicks, bounces, et cetera.

And beyond that, you could set up a mechanism for gauging your sentiment, your brand sentiment, because KPIs don't always have to be quantitative, right? It's kind of what you hear from people as well. So for example, for Olmsted Medical Center, we have heard that clinicians are hearing from their patients about the Pelvis Party, and that's really powerful, especially when you talk about how are you going to present this information, your ROI to senior leadership. Sharing those actual encounters that patients have heard about the Pelvis Party and they learned something is a good message for senior leadership and the buy-in to whatever your project is or your initiative.

Host: So, you gauge likes, commenting, views of the landing page since it is a video podcast, right? I imagine views on YouTube, is that correct?

Brittany Strum: Correct.

Host: Do you offer an audio version only or is it just the video version on YouTube and social media?

Brittany Strum: More to come on that, Bill. Probably during the conference, actually, I'll be sharing what our next steps are going to look like.

Host: I like it. You heard it here first, people. Brittany's going to drop some knowledge and some secret information on you at SHSMD Connections 2025. I love it. Brittany, this has really been fantastic. Just a couple more questions for you. Are there any things that we should avoid, potential pitfalls that we need to be aware of if we're thinking about doing a campaign such as yours?

Brittany Strum: I think, don't overthink it. Don't try too hard. This process doesn't have to be complicated. Just find your champion, your influencer. One that is constantly sharing on their social pages or engaging with your organizational pages and sharing what great experiences that they've had with their healthcare providers or the friend of a friend that keeps recommending Dr. So-and-so. Find that person, vet them and engage with them. Have a conversation about sharing it on a different platform, a different level. And I mean, each brand has to decide what's right for them, whether it's going to be video content, podcasting, or something else.

Host: That's all really good stuff. Brittany, this has really been interesting. I've enjoyed talking with you and this is going to be a great session. It's going to happen Monday the 13th at 11:25, so make sure you go check out Brittany in this session. Before we wrap up, one last question, Brittany, anything else you want to add at all?

Brittany Strum: I would say be bold. Don't be afraid to have the vulnerable conversation. That's what the pelvis party is all about. But I think it applies to strategy as well. Don't be afraid to brainstorm and think the biggest idea, because that's kind of how this started. I wouldn't have thought the Pelvis Party would be as popular it is, not that I was hoping it would fail, but we're three years in the making and thinking about what it's going to evolve into. And it's been a really fun process. And, I think, really, that's what healthcare needs. We need to liven it up, be genuine, be who we are as brands, and showcase that in our marketing efforts.

Host: Well, when you say liven it up, the Pelvis Party, certainly it sounds like it's livening it up. That's for sure. I love it. Be bold as you said, but also be strategic at the same time. I know you're going to cover all of this in the session and I urge people to go to it. I know you're going to get a lot more into it and show examples and all those things. As someone listening can't make it and they just want to check it out, can they go to your YouTube channel and then see the Pelvis Party in action, the Olmsted Medical YouTube channel?

Brittany Strum: Yes, they can.

Host: That's awesome. All right. We'll do that too. Do both. Go check it out, and then go see Brittany at SHSMD Connections. Brittany, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Brittany Strum: !Thank you, Bill. Thanks for having me.

Host: You bet. And once again, that is Brittany Strum. And Brittany, as I said, she's going to be speaking at SHSMD Connections 2025 in Dallas. Her session specifically is on Monday the 13th at 11:25. Get registered at SHSMD.org/education/annualconference.

And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. And please hit the subscribe or follow button to get every episode chockfull of goodness, people, and to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you. Just visit SHSMD.org/podcasts. This has been a production of Doctor Podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See ya!