Truth vs. Trends: How one Association Combats Trending Fear-Based Information
The Challenge
Misinformation about healthcare issues and treatments, including root canals spreads rapidly across social media, driven by sensational, uncredentialed creators promoting fear-based narratives. Members of the American Association of Endodontists (AAE), specialists trained to perform complex root canal procedures, saw patients delaying care, arriving anxious, or avoiding treatment altogether. AAE partnered with CS-Effect to design and launch a strategic influencer marketing campaign with the goal of combating misinformation, driving traffic to AAE’s consumer myth-busting page, and increasing visits to the FindMyEndodontist.com locator service.
The Action
CS-Effect scoured social media content analysis to understand how root canal misinformation was created and consumed in real time, reviewing high-performing influencer content, engagement patterns, and comment sentiment across platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
From there, CS-Effect developed a 2-strategy approach:
Address root canal myths by leveraging medical influencers with built-in trust and science-based healthcare credibility
Partner with pediatrician influencers who educate parents on preventing and responding to tooth injuries.
CS-Effect identified and vetted influencers for their reach, expertise, quality of content, and brand alignment, then negotiated rates and contracts. We also worked with each influencer to provide messaging and scripts that they then used to produce Reels, TikToks, and Instagram Story sequences. Every post included a UTM coded link to AAE’s Knocked-Out Tooth resources and Find My Endodontist.