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HashtagHealth — A social media agency empowering people to make educated health decisions

HashtagHealth — A social media agency empowering people to make educated health decisions

Health is a most critical aspect of our life. It is often considered a fundamental right to have access to health care. Yet most people around the world don’t have access to even the most basic medical care. Without access to proper care, people are at far greater risk: disease, malnutrition, and other health issues can be very dangerous without adequate help and support.

HashtagHealth is a social media agency focused on empowering people to make educated health decisions by connecting them directly to the source — health care brands and organizations around the world. We interviewed Brittany Latson and Kristin Hassan, the founders of HashtagHealth, to better understand the company and the services it offers. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Q. Why did you choose to start a social media agency for health care?

There are many reasons why HashtagHealth was developed to support the health care community. From its inception, the company has been solely devoted to bridging the gap between traditional health care marketing and social media. For patients affected by various health conditions, as well as for health care professionals seeking late-breaking news, social media is an essential lifeline. At HashtagHealth, we’re motivated to support, educate, and engage patients, caregivers, and health care professionals, with the hope that doing so will lead to better health outcomes and improved doctor-patient communication. Our passion has always been helping patients, and creating a business focused on bringing that mission to life enabled us to fulfill that promise.

HashtagHealth was officially launched in 2015 to enable us to better serve the patient and health care communities, as well as to support our clients who needed help in this area. Because social media was still a new concept to the pharmaceutical and health care markets then, it was a perfect time to establish an agency that specialized within that space.

Q. How do you help patients and the health care industry fulfill their greatest needs?

To best understand how we help patients and the health care industry fulfill their needs, it is essential to understand our mission. HashtagHealth is a social media agency focused exclusively on health care. We partner with dynamic health care companies and advocacy groups worldwide that are passionate about giving patients and health care professionals a voice where they need it most. At HashtagHealth, we cover everything from social campaign creative concepting and development to platform management and monitoring, influencer mapping and social listening, employee workshops and training, live event broadcasts, and much more.

Notably, most of our projects involve patient outreach that provides a platform on which patients, caregivers, and health care professionals can share their personal experiences. This not only lets them speak their truths, but it also enables us to broadcast those sentiments to the social world to allow those truths to finally be heard.

Q. What is your client base? How satisfied are your clients?

We are fortunate to partner with amazing clients within the pharmaceutical and health care sectors who genuinely value our services and expertise. Since our launch, many of our clients have entrusted us with taking on an increasing number of projects from year to year, and additional clients have sought our services through word of mouth. From our perspective, great work and exceptional service speak for themselves — which is readily evident in the growth we’ve continued to experience over time.

We’ve established such strong relationships with our clients because we approach each initiative with partnership and collaboration in mind. While our clients pay us for our services, we don’t pitch or present work unless it is based on sound strategic rationale. We never suggest a project or initiative because it’s trendy or simply to sell an idea. By doing business with integrity, passion, and purpose, we’ve established a great deal of trust and appreciation from the clients we work with most closely. Our longest-standing clients include Eisai, Inc.; Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Agios, Inc.; and Amgen Inc., among many others — and we look forward to continuing our partnership with them, as well as with other companies, in the years to come.

Q. Who are your esteemed partners? How have your partnerships changed for good?

Over the years, we’ve partnered with many other health care marketing agencies to ensure seamless collaboration on client projects and initiatives. Because we only focus on social media, it’s essential that any other digital, in-person, or traditional marketing efforts work in lockstep toward achieving our clients’ goals. Therefore, we partner closely with other agency teams that have established working relationships with our clients and are driven to ensuring those relationships benefit both our clients and the projects at hand.

In addition to partnering with other health care marketing agencies, we do a great deal of work with patient advocacy groups. These advocacy groups play a crucial role in directly supporting patients affected by various health conditions. In conjunction with the social communities built and nurtured by patient advocacy groups, we are also able to reach and engage with an incremental number of patients, caregivers, and health care professionals, thus elevating the performance of any social campaign we create.

Q. Social media has its own way of reaching out to people. How do you make a difference?

Our mission is to create unique, dynamic social media campaigns that resonate with specific target audience groups. Every project we initiate is deeply rooted in strategic insights derived from the true behaviors of that audience group and molded by the ultimate goals and objectives of our clients’ campaigns. By focusing on our target audiences’ needs and behaviors as our number one priority and consideration, we are able to develop distinct, impactful, and engaging social media campaigns that stand out. Most importantly, our work positively impacts patients and connects them to the information and resources they truly need.

Q. Have you developed any unique plans for your firm?

The world of social media changes continually and rapidly. With that in mind, we create initiatives and campaigns that evolve from month to month based on the success of the content we publish and the feedback we receive from the social community. This dynamic process allows us to capitalize and expand on what worked well, or quickly learn and adapt our approach based on what didn’t. We never overthink or dread a new challenge: challenges provide us with heightened insight and greater opportunities to improve our approach, eventually leading to success.

Social media will continue to take an even more dominant role in how health care marketers approach interactions with patients, caregivers, and health care professionals. More importantly, it will continue to broaden how those groups communicate with one another. Video- and audio-based platforms will become increasingly essential tools for truly engaging with people in a meaningful and memorable way.

Q. What challenges did you encounter initially, and how did you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges we faced when we initially launched our company was helping the pharmaceutical and health care marketers understand the value of social media — particularly when there’s so much perceived risk in such a highly regulated industry. In the early days, risk-mitigation strategies and internal educational programs were invaluable in helping our clients’ stakeholders better understand how social media could be leveraged in a positive and compliant way.

Through developing thoughtful yet strict protocols, we’ve been able to help our clients venture out into the social sphere in a way that allows them to achieve their goals in supporting patients, but with minimal fear of compliance risks. Although navigating these discussions takes a lot of time and energy, the end result has been highly rewarding: it has enabled our clients to truly provide value to patients on social media who desperately need support.

Q. What is your philosophy based on?

At HashtagHealth, our philosophy is based on the belief that every social media initiative should be driven by strategy, inspired by creativity, and balanced by business. Our goal is to improve the way patients receive and share information, with the hope that they will ultimately benefit — whether through receiving the information they so critically need or by getting the emotional support they truly deserve.

Q. Tell us about a time when you went above and beyond expectations, and why.

When we approach new projects, our goal is always to go above and beyond our clients’ expectations. We are constantly looking for new and better ways to work and more engaging methods to support patients, caregivers, and health care professionals via social media. Exceeding expectations and evolving our work to improve performance are programmed into our DNA.

Q. What does the future hold for HashtagHealth?

The future is bright for HashtagHealth. Our team continues to grow to meet the demands of the ever-changing health care industry. Lately, we’ve been involved in more social live broadcasts and dynamic video content to provide exceptional engagement opportunities for our clients. Most importantly, we are partnering with many clients who have expanded their social initiatives for the next two years, allowing us to reach and interact with more patients on a truly meaningful level. We are most excited to work on projects in which patients and their families genuinely feel supported, and we are grateful for this opportunity.

Meet the Founders

Brittany Latson and Kristin Hassan launched HashtagHealth more than six years ago with the sincere hope of supporting and connecting patients worldwide. It is still that drive and desire to support those who need it most that makes HashtagHealth a unique agency. Brittany and Kristin are incredibly proud of the work the agency has created and are forever grateful for the incredible team at HashtagHealth that is equally passionate about making a difference.

“We partner with dynamic health care companies and advocacy groups worldwide that are passionate about giving patients and health care professionals a voice where they need it most.”

“Through social engagement, we empower people to make educated decisions on health by connecting them directly to the source — health care brands and organizations around the world.”


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