The Rise of the Healthcare Influencer and Nurse Entrepreneurship

No longer is facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok merely about keeping in contact and learning how to make viral recipes (looking at you yummy Tik Tok feta pasta.) Social media platforms have launched the online careers and rise of doctors and nurses who have branched out as influencers in their specialties or have started business ventures from their expertise. 

The number of healthcare influencers has appeared to explode on social media in the last decade. The array of platforms includes those that battle the war of health misinformation or how to start your dream nursing career. There is now a community for almost any healthcare-related topic that crosses your mind. 

Want to hear more about Legal Nurse consulting? There are webinars, books, and courses on the subject. Want to invest in Real Estate and speak with other healthcare workers doing that? Many have courses, resources, and facebook groups with meet-ups to help you start your real estate investments. Want to become financially literate and improve your knowledge of investing your dollars?  You can find a wealth of resources, courses, and striking back stories of their financial journeys to help you along and get you a plan to that work-optional life stat. 

The ability to launch a business directly to an audience searching for your expertise has been made possible by social media and its reach of billions of internet users worldwide. Online platforms also allow monetization and a scalable business model not previously available to those who may not have had a business background or a large amount of capital to start a business. The gates of opportunity to create and sell your content and expertise are wide open to influencers from all backgrounds. The average influencer makes $54k a year per indeed.com, and the income potential is vast with the ability of income streams from sponsored posts, affiliate links, and merchandise. Healthcare workers are getting in on the action and leveraging their knowledge to help each other within the healthcare community and beyond. 

With many healthcare workers burned out at the bedside or looking for other ways of utilizing their skills and knowledge, the transition to online content creation has shown those skills are transferable. Mixed with the ability to create your schedule and work from basically anywhere that has a Wi-Fi connection, it is easy to see why many healthcare workers are exploring the world of healthcare influencers. 

The pandemic also gave momentum to shift many companies and businesses to an online delivery model. From telehealth to online education, the opportunities to work online increased dramatically and gave legitimacy to platforms that solely deliver their content online that may not have been there before the pandemic. More people are now willing to seek out information, classes, and even their healthcare online, and this has also tipped the scales in favor of information delivered over social media. 

Many of the topics these influencers are bringing to light also speak directly to the needs of healthcare workers and are filling the gaps for mental health support, financial management, career coaching, and navigating healthcare information and misinformation in the digital age. These are all areas that healthcare workers seek information for, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of followers many of these platforms have, and appear to meet these needs in a way most employers or educational institutions cannot provide. These creators, being healthcare workers themselves, have the insider's view of what is ailing the system and those who work in it and are showing up as change agents and independent entrepreneurs. The freedom of being self-employed allows many to voice their unfiltered opinions and insights on improving what they see as broken. Suppose the adage that "necessity is the mother of invention" holds. In that case, the option of making a living outside of traditional settings is an example of how many have found a way to reinvent what it can mean to work in healthcare when conditions are unfavorable or unsustainable.  

More and more people are looking to social media as a viable option to start a business. If, after reading this, the idea of online entrepreneurship has piqued your interest, don't worry; there are already some healthcare influencers out there looking to help you.