Influencers in digital health: Flo’s expert partnership manager speaks on forming and maintaining successful partnerships
Flo’s expert partnership manager, Alexandra Bobekh, is responsible for influencer and expert collaborations. Here, she explains what her job entails and why these collaborations are so important.
Ensuring a brand stands out for all the right reasons can be a tricky ask, particularly in an increasingly oversubscribed digital world where thousands of companies are jostling daily for eyeballs and clicks. This is where influencer marketing comes in. Best described as the mutually beneficial relationship or “strategy” between brands and social media influencers, done right, influencer marketing can help companies grow brand awareness and build trust, as well as improve SEO and sales. But how does it work at Flo? Here, Flo’s partnership manager, Alexandra Bobekh, explains how and why these relationships are formed and what’s involved in her role, day to day.
The role of a partnership manager
The influencer world is huge, and typically, influencer managers are the people reaching out to influencers to do ads. My role at Flo is slightly different and more niche. I collaborate solely with influencers who we consider experts. We refer to them as “digital opinion leaders” (a healthtech term), and the ones I work with have a specific focus on health care and medicine. So that might include doctors, nurses, and health and well-being experts, for example, but could also include authors, celebrities, and organizations.
The other difference between my role and that of a typical influencer manager is the kind of projects we work on. Instead of focusing mostly on ads, my role involves juggling a wide variety of projects. Ads typically make up around just 5% of the projects we do, so I’m also working on things like creating and promoting informative video content, hosting filmed panel talks, and collaborating on podcasts, articles, AMA sessions on the Flo app or Instagram, and TikTok LIVEs. It varies from month to month, and we’re always open to ideas from the digital opinion leaders we work with, too.
In addition to setting up these projects, a big part of my role is focused on building personal connections with digital opinion leaders, so they understand the Flo brand and the value of working together — both from their side and our side too. It’s really important that we have that transparency to work together effectively.
How and why influencers work with Flo
At Flo, we have a board of over 100 doctors, scientists, and health experts who peer-review and evaluate our content to make sure the medical information we share is up to date, accurate, and medically trustworthy. Our partnerships team is mostly responsible for collaborating with those experts, whereas I focus on working with digital opinion leaders or health care influencers who have a specific audience on social media (though understandably, there is often some crossover there).
These digital opinion leaders tend to have an existing audience we can collaborate with, along with additional content skills, meaning they’re brilliant at bringing ideas to us. They might say, “I had this video that went viral recently. Shall we work on something similar?” which is useful.
Working with medical influencers like doctors or health care professionals is great for several reasons. Firstly, they can help us generate brilliant content (like videos, podcasts, and articles) that is not only creative but medically trustworthy. Secondly, there’s brand awareness. Flo is much more than just a period tracker, so medical experts can not only help their audience understand our product better but help us expand our reach among the health care audience, too.
That relationship works both ways. Medical influencers are usually keen to work with us because not only do we pay fairly, but one in six women in the United States already uses Flo. This means a lot of the people we reach out to have already personally seen the benefits of our app. I often receive replies from influencers like, “My two babies were born thanks to Flo, so I’d love to work on a video together!” which is great. At Flo, we have a strong focus on helping people get to know their bodies and health better, so it figures that influencers are excited about contributing to a product that has a vision of positively changing the world.
A day in the life of a partnership manager
No day is ever quite the same. Most mornings, I wake up and check my emails first thing to see if I’ve received anything from my experts or influencers. This quarter, we’ve been working on a podcast and shooting video content in Los Angeles, so I’ll check that they’re running according to plan.
I’ve always got my eye open for people who might be a good fit for the brand or a specific project, whether it’s a health care professional or a sex educator, for example. Recently, we spotted that one sex and relationships influencer was pregnant and decided it could be a great opportunity to film some video content about her pregnancy journey. We created a project especially for her, which was great.
When speaking to influencers, I’m always trying to better understand their interests and areas of expertise, as well as things like whether they’re affiliated with another brand or have a new book or TV show coming out that might tie into a specific project we’re working on. For example, if an OB-GYN (obstetrician and gynecologist) tells me they’re specifically interested in sexual health, I’ll make a note of that so we can then suggest projects or opportunities based on those interests in the future.
Once a project is confirmed, I’ll work on negotiating the terms and ensuring that everything runs according to plan and we’re all aligned in terms of budget, timing, etc. If not, I’ll have further conversations with my wider team to discuss next steps and solutions. As you might imagine, there’s a lot of juggling of ongoing projects and upcoming plans at the same time.
What it’s like working at Flo
This is my third year at Flo. Before I joined, I worked as an influencer marketing manager at an influencer agency. My role there was to find the right influencers for specific projects with brands before negotiating rates and launching the ads.
Working at not just a startup but the fastest-growing AI-driven women’s health product, my work — and role — are constantly changing. Obviously, social media moves quickly, too. I love the fact that it’s constantly evolving, and because it’s a fast-paced role, I’m constantly challenged. I particularly enjoy the communication element. I love working with different people and meeting people outside the organization, as well as having a lot of interesting conversations within it.
I think freedom of time is also key. Obviously, working with influencers, you often experience time differences (I’m in Europe, and many of them are US-based). This means I’ll sometimes speak to them late at night to ensure a project runs on time, and this role allows me the flexibility to use my time efficiently. Working at a startup also means we benefit from an open, encouraging environment that allows us to bring ideas to the table and truly be heard.
Advice for anyone wanting to land an influencer manager role
To anyone hoping to find a role in influencer marketing, I have two crucial pieces of advice.
The first is you need to love social media. The job involves spending a lot of time trawling through social media, searching for people and ideas.
The second is that negotiating is a huge part of the role, so you need to feel comfortable speaking with lots of different people regularly and clearly outlining what projects involve. I think it also helps if you’re open-minded and not judgmental. It might sound strange, but you need to be good at understanding people’s mindsets and handling odd, unusual requests.
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