👋 Welcome back to ACTION POTENTIAL.
You’ve probably seen it floating around LinkedIn already and have likely even thought it many times before: How long should this animation be? How about this video from this medical congress? Is 30 seconds too long? Too short?
My take: TikTok just released their annual trend forecast, and whether or not your brand is active on the platform, the behaviors they’re tracking are showing up everywhere. And they have serious implications for how we connect with patients, HCPs, caregivers, and the broader media and investor industry.
Here’s what you’ll learn below in five minutes or less:
The three trend signals from TikTok’s 2026 report – and what they mean for healthcare
The stat that should change how you think about social spend and media mix
A quick ICYMI on the TikTok deal closing this week
What’s “Irreplaceable Instinct”?
It’s TikTok’s theme for 2026, defined as “what technology can’t replace: connection, curiosity, and presence, even when it’s a little messy.”
In 2025, audiences coped with overwhelm through quiet quitting, avoiding intensity, running on autopilot. In 2026, TikTok’s data shows a shift from passive living to active creation. People are retraining their instincts with real curiosity, conviction, and care.
The report was “powered by AI, shaped by people.” That’s the model. And it’s the model we should be thinking about for our own work.
The Three Trend Signals
1 | Reali-TEA: Fantasy is fading.
TikTok audiences have moved on from romanticizing life (#delulu, #digitalescapism) to embracing chaos together. They’re sharing horror stories, chaotic trip lore, and finding community in navigating life’s mess together.
For healthcare: That polished patient journey video with the perfect outcome? It might feel hollow. Consider content that acknowledges the reality of managing chronic conditions – the frustration of prior authorizations, the small wins that don’t make for dramatic before-and-afters, the in-between moments that actually define someone’s experience with a disease.
Millennial and Gen Z users are 1.5x more likely to engage with companies that have strong community. They’re not looking for perfection; they’re looking for belonging.
2 | Curiosity Detours: Audiences arrive with intention and leave with curiosity.
Here’s the stat that stopped me: 2 in 3 TikTok searchers say a central reason for using it as a search platform is that they discover useful things beyond what they were searching for.
Billions of searches happen on TikTok daily – up more than 40% from last year. And 1 in 4 users start searching within 30 seconds of opening the app.
For healthcare: Your audience searching “migraine relief” might discover your brand through a sleep hygiene video that mentions triggers. Or a stress management video that leads to gut health, which leads to a conversation about chronic conditions. The path to content isn’t linear.
That meandering user journey schematic from last year? It’s now a rabbit hole.
That’s a feature, not a bug.
3 | Emotional ROI: Impulse loses to intention.
This is the big one. Audiences are pre-validating decisions. They’re weighing emotional return alongside practical considerations. They want to understand the “why” before they act.
TikTok’s framing: people get data from AI, but they come to TikTok for the human spark. For joy, for discovery, and for context from trusted sources (and my healthcare industry hot take: Not necessarily from “influencers” but from people with influence).
For healthcare: “Why should I talk to my doctor about this treatment?” now requires a deeper answer than efficacy data. What’s the emotional payoff of adherence? What does staying on therapy actually feel like for someone’s daily life? What changes?
OK, so what does this actually mean for work?
Three fundamentals to keep in mind:
Audit your content for emotional resonance. Does your brand explain the “why” beyond clinical data? Can you articulate what adherence actually means for someone’s life – not just their lab values?
Map your curiosity detours. What unexpected paths are audiences taking to discover your category? Where are you missing from adjacent conversations? TikTok’s tools (Market Scope, Insight Spotlight) can help – but so can simply asking: where else does my audience spend time when they’re not thinking about their condition?
Embrace the messy. Authenticity isn’t about being unpolished – it’s about being real. The healthcare industry has long preferred glossy, high-production storytelling. But shorter, less produced content at scale often outperforms the big-budget masterpiece.
Most importantly: Make it human. AI can fuel the data; human instinct sets the direction.
More on applying these trends to specific content formats in a later edition.
📊 The Number That Matters
Pharma is forecast to spend more on social media than linear TV for the first time in 2026.
A few years ago, social was an experiment. Now it’s the primary channel for reaching younger demographics; 47% of Gen Z and 37% of millennials use platforms like TikTok and Instagram for health research.
Linear TV accounted for 30% of pharma ad spend in 2021. By 2027, it’s projected to drop to 12%.
The shift is here.
ICYMI…
The TikTok deal is set to (finally) close this week – January 22nd, to be exact.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew confirmed in December that agreements have been signed to create a new U.S. joint venture (TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC). Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will collectively own about 45%, with ByteDance retaining 19.9%. The new entity will have a majority-American board and will retrain the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data.
For now, it’s business as usual. But we’re literally days away from the deadline, so worth keeping an eye on as you finalize any TikTok-specific strategies.
That’s it for this week. If any of this sparked something – or if you want me to dig deeper on a specific trend – hit reply. I read everything.
✌️ J
