The Everythingness of Digital: In healthcare, digital commonly means one of the three things: (1) social media, (2) websites, and (3) paid advertising. Now, digital is how journalists find news. Digital is how patients and caregivers make decisions on treatment and care. Digital is how everyone consumes information – from the moment they wake up to the minutes before they fall asleep. Think about the last time you didn’t use your phone or laptop to learn about something or to make a decision. Whether you work in communications, marketing, media, or elsewhere across health, it’s important to take stock of how digital will evolve both your day-to-day and your future.

Redefining Connection and Community: Over the past two decades, social media trends have acted as a pendulum going from emphasizing hyperpersonal 1:1 connections to chasing impersonal viral fame and back again. As COVID was disrupting the future of work forever, it was also transforming the way people interact in real life. Social – and digital more broadly – will continue to act as a facilitator for people to find personal meaning and validation that formerly existed offline.

Curiosity and Impatience: As a build to the prior trend, the “at your fingertips” nature of digital means process and rigor often find themselves waylaid by more instant gratification. A YouTube video will explain something in 10 minutes, not in 10 hours. An influencer will empower you to ask the right questions. A newsletter (👋 hello) will collate all the information you didn’t even know you needed in a single one-stop shop. Though self-driven curiosity will drive more engagement when done right, it’s innately coupled with impatience – which threatens to amplify misinformation when done wrong.

The Evolution of Industry: The uncertainty of an impending IPG/Omnicom merger coupled with the pace of technology will certainly be an overlay – directly or otherwise – to many business decisions. An increasing rigor in internal operations and talent engagement will be critical in modernizing and futureproofing companies against large emerging challenges in healthcare: authenticity in storytelling, fake news, and an increased expectation from a more-informed public for companies to act.

An Expansion of Influence: I’ve been excited to see the rapid progress of Influencer Marketing in healthcare communications and marketing, an offering that was slow-growing mere years ago despite exponential growth in non-health industries like tech and food & beverage. Now, the accelerated pace of digital is enabling an ever-expansive definition of what it means to influence. Lived experiences will continue to remain critical but we also begin to see a rise in importance of people who are influential, period. Media used to influence news, influence opinions, influence decisions. You are the media now.

YouTube Shorts will actively reshape the current social platform ecosystem. Content isn’t developed for YouTube Shorts; it’s developed for TikTok or Instagram Reels and then repurposed on YouTube because Google made repurposing content incredibly frictionless. As a result, companies and creators alike are experimenting with Shorts in a way that newer, more restrictive platforms haven’t been able to unlock, driving traffic and upsetting the information-seeking paradigm across the larger digital ecosystem. This is why YouTube is YouTube and why you haven’t heard anything about the dozens of other social platforms that came and went last year. (BeReal, anyone?)

Creators will emerge as a partner and complement to traditional Creative. Get ready for the rise of the new “jack of all trades.” Our emerging workforce has grown up in the age of the social media. They know how to edit video. They know how to create catchy, attention-grabbing headlines. They know how to be social on social. Creators are largely self-trained and self-motivated, and as millennials who grew up in the digital age enter the C-suite, gen Z creators will become an increasingly integral component of any prestigious agency or award-winning campaign.

AI will seriously disrupt at least one agency vertical. Last year, AI continuously loomed as an existential threat to agency structures – how can AI be used to create financial efficiencies for clients by reducing overall work effort? This year, I do believe that AI will advance enough in at least one facet to massively change a tactical way of working. The trickier piece is predicting where this will land, and understanding how AI can work as a complement to current work versus rendering it obsolete. And how MSAs can be revised quickly enough to accommodate!

The company that solves for social video wins. Let’s face it; the healthcare industry is behind when it comes to social video formats. It’s how we all consume personal information but that hasn’t translated to our professional setting. We still like our storytelling to be shiny, to be high-gloss, to be long-form. And how many companies have the budgets and the expertise to pull that off – and pull it off consistently? Shorter, less produced content at scale provides your viewers the opportunity to follow and engage with you for a longer period of time. Your medical milestones grab attention but it’s what happens in the period between them that are just as critical; that’s where this content will succeed.

Digital generalists will thrive at all levels. The need for the health workforce to be “digitally-native” is clear: as our world becomes increasingly digital, not including digital in your toolbox of skills or interests means a reduced investment in your future potential. Of course, I’m not suggesting folks become an expert in email marketing or paid advertising; highly-skilled tacticians and strategists across every digital vertical will always be important. But understanding the fundamentals and being curious about digital allows you to guide others and navigate both the technological advancements and external environmental pressures sure to hit our industry this year. Digital itself is no longer a vertical; it should be infused horizontally into every piece of your business, whether agency, company, or independent entrepreneur.