Becoming Dr Laura
by Caitrina Cody
With over 40K followers on Instagram, Dr Laura Lenihan blends her medical expertise with her real-life experiences as a mother of three. “What you see is what you get” is her guiding principle and her dedication to staying real means she stands out in a sea of image-conscious influencers. Here she discusses her passion for skincare; the perils of advertising; and her ambitious plan for a one-stop woman's clinic.
Dr Laura prides herself on showing the honest side of working from home with three young daughters.
Over the phone, Dr Laura Lenihan seems just as down to earth as she appears in her Instagram Stories. She sounds like she’s busy and that’s certainly the truth: with three young daughters, a soon-to-be-launched GP clinic in Galway and an Instagram brand on her hands, every second counts.
She’s relatively new to the world of the social media influencer — 18 months ago she would never have dreamed that her online persona would now be guiding the path of her career in medicine. Known now as “Dr Laura GP”, her passion is for credible, evidence-based information and real human connection and that’s exactly how she got started.
“When I became a mum I noticed how unaware many other mums were — lots of us don’t know what's normal and what's not. There’s a lot of information out there and much of it isn't evidence-based — it's anecdotal, there's no science behind it. I remember women telling me that they leaked and that they thought this was just a normal thing after childbirth and I thought no, that’s not normal, that shouldn't happen."
Her work on Instagram essentially grew from that desire then: to provide trustworthy, reliable online information. Dr Laura started slow, leaning on her medical expertise, rather than her personality at first. “If you go back to my early posts, they're all very informational — “this is the structure of the skin” and “this is all about eczema”. It was all educational, evidence-based content, there was no personal part of me in it. Slowly but surely that changed; I remember talking to Lisa Ní Chuinnegáin Guthrie (@dr_mammyguthrie) and she said you need to put yourself out there and get on Stories. I had no plan, I had no big vision but once I did that, things snowballed.”
What started with the creation of a simple Instagram graphic led to a whole new chapter in Dr Laura’s life. “Within a month I had 1,000 followers and it just kept growing from there. It was all quite organic, I didn't do anything specific to get followers. I did lots of takeovers in the beginning because I was asked to, but the whole idea was just me being me. It worked and it developed into me having my own brand, based around myself.”
She prides herself on showing the honest side of working from home with three young daughters. “It’s been particularly hard during lockdown with no childcare and a new-born — anyone who would say different isn’t telling you the truth. But there are so many out there you can follow if you want a dolled-up version of a person, I'm just not like that in real life. I don't wear make-up, I don’t have my hair done every day, what you see is what you get and I guess people appreciate that. They like to know that even as a doctor or GP — someone who should maybe have their head screwed on — that it's ok to worry and be anxious. My followers appreciate the honesty and the realness of it I suppose.”
Opening her life up via Instagram was a decision Dr Laura did not take lightly. “I didn’t want to put myself out there to 1,000 people at first because you do open yourself up to criticism. I choose to put my life out there, although people think they see everything, they don’t, it’s just a snapshot. Anyone would struggle to find balance and draw boundaries though because you want to share with your community too… but on days out with my family now, I try not to share those sometimes, so I can get a bit of balance and be ‘in the moment’ a bit more."
Dr Laura’s daughters Harper (pictured), Indie and Romy make regular appearances in her online content.
When it comes to a brand strategy, Dr Laura’s is refreshingly basic. “My content is completely ad hoc. The more I share on Stories, the more I continue to share. The most I’ve ever shared to date was when I talked about my C Section with Romy [her daughter, born in May] — I pretty much shared the full 24 to 72 hours afterward, everything that happened. The reaction to that was fantastic; people are so scared of C Sections and the amount of messages I got about it was incredible. To be able to promote the C Section, to show that it's not a scary thing, was wonderful — after all, the more information people have the more relaxed they can be about it.
“In terms of engagement, I look at what does well on my Instagram and what doesn’t; for instance, any personal photos I put up perform way better than anything medical. There’s so much love for the personal, not so much for the medical. If I put up a photo of myself with the kids tomorrow, it will get thousands of likes; if I put up an informative post it might only get a couple of hundred. That said, if it was COVID-19-related, it might get over 1,000. Interestingly, shares and saves are always significantly higher for medical content.”
It’s the creation of her own online community that Dr Laura loves the most, though it comes at a cost to her own spare time. “The amount of people that message me to say 'I’m pregnant, I haven’t told anyone else, I’m only six weeks but I’m so excited and I wanted to tell you first!' People share so much with me, which is lovely; to have that level of trust is wonderful. But it takes so much time. I multitask though, I’m up nearly every night with Romy or someone, so people get replies in the middle of the night. I wrote my flu vaccine content in the middle of the night, I had done the research in advance, so wrote it up while my kids were not sleeping.”
For many influencers, Instagram advertising is a thorny subject — and often the only way of making money from a very all-consuming style of work. “I’m extremely picky about the brands that I work with, my ads are mainly for things that I would recommend anyway as a GP and mum, like the Chicco Next To Me (it’s amazing, it changed my life!) I choose things that my followers will be interested in and I pretty much only work with brands that will allow me to do educational content. With an emollient brand, for instance, I might do a post on eczema and talk about that brand as a treatment option. I think that works really well, allowing me to generate helpful content for my followers and generate income from it too."
Working with brands like HappySkin® (base layer clothing designed to protect children's irritated skin) and Mum & You skincare, Dr Laura finds that reactions to her Instagram ads have been relatively positive — though she sometimes loses followers as a result. "I’ve said no to so many things though. I think there is a fine line; as a doctor, the Medical Council can investigate if they think you’re doing anything unethical, but there’s just no guidance in terms of social media at the minute."
Today Dr Laura is known for her in-depth focus on skincare content, as well as her fact-based advice on women's health. “It started when I began sharing my routines and the skincare products I was using; I did a lot on eczema and SPF at the beginning so I’d get sent products from La Roche-Posay and Avene and then people wanted to know what I would use every day on my own skin."
Dr Laura’s first clinic is due to open in Galway City in late 2020, specialising in women's health services like contraception, family planning, fertility and menopause consultations; dermatology consultations; and prescription-strength skin care services, including aesthetic treatments. She credits her experience as an Instagram influencer with helping her to shape her bricks-and-mortar project to suit a specific niche.
"Most people with acne will go to their GP for an antibiotic and then to a facialist for a facial but there isn’t really one person that covers all of that," she explains. "I want to be able to say “yes, you need an antibiotic,” but along with that, you need to use a certain kind of skincare. I want to do peels and micro-needling and Botox, I want to be able to treat the whole person in front of me. Ultimately my clinic will be where you can come to me for all your womanly needs. If I’ve learned anything from Instagram, it’s what I truly love: women’s health and skincare."
