The SVM PR and Marketing team recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Christina Farr, editor-in-chief/CEO of Second Opinion Media and a GP at early-stage healthcare fund Scrub Capital, to review how the digital health media landscape has evolved over the past few years.

Here’s her insider POV.

SVM: What type of health-tech content is driving engagement?

CF: It’s operational content, and by that, I mean tactical playbooks, business model explorations, deep dives. As one example, I just wrote something looking at Grow Therapy’s playbook for each of the go-to-markets they attacked, and how other companies are trying to follow them. This is dead on what my audience wants to read, and it’s not surprising because it’s giving them insight and opportunities to grow their own business. It’s about value and unique perspectives that you can’t read anywhere else, not high-level, generic thought leaders just talking about why we need more AI in healthcare.

Additionally, topics like “why did this company do so well with this set of CMS reimbursement codes?”or “marketing strategies that D2C marketers use successfully in healthcare”– real-world examples are really popular with my audience. What is not popular: funding announcements, product launches, deep dives on startups that don’t have brand recognition yet. It is very hard to find a broader audience for that type of content beyond the immediate circle of that company.  We also find success with interviews with well-respected figures in the industry,

Examples:

  • Interview with Medicare chief Chris Klomp
  • How the smart digital health marketers are thinking about patient acquisition

SVM: Are there any other story elements that can aid the less sexy topics, e.g., funding, that you think make them more compelling to reporters and get them a better shot of coverage?

CF: I’m seeing a ton of companies now create funding videos on their own channels. Speaking from the investor perspective, if you know how to create your own content, get it in really good shape, make it really creative and cool, and then have your allies, your investors, the people around the company start sharing it too, you can own a whole day of attention related to this funding announcement.

My favorite thing to receive is a nudge to share a personal story about why I invested, instead of just copying and pasting generic content. Companies should be focused on other things that they can control that will have way more impact than some paywall mentioned somewhere. Every company should have a plan to share the announcement with their supporters, so they can rally around them on the day.

SVM: How do you push your clients to make their thought leadership more impactful?

CF: I try to spend a bunch of time just asking questions and going really deep. And since I haven’t always been in media, I can usually spot something out of those discussions that they didn’t even realize was interesting and pull it out.

A lot of it is like matching what their goals are, and then who do they have available on the team that’s a good speaker, and in what context they are comfortable. If somebody’s got an amazing on-stage persona, we’ve done really creative things where we’ve even built summits with them, and I’ve done all the content and the guests, and it just gives this opportunity for this individual to speak on stage directly to their audience.

Or it’s a podcast. And we’re getting a ton of inbound right now from companies who have amazing CEOs who have great stories to tell, and the mainstream media is just not doing sit-down television interviews anymore with these people, and so they’ll sit in a studio in New York City and talk to me for two hours, and then my team will come up with an amazing piece of video content, and produce all the clips that are ideal for each channel.

It’s just trying to make that match between whom you’re trying to reach, who the stakeholders and customers are, and how we can use Second Opinion distribution to be able to help you get there, and in a format in which you’re comfortable? Just trust us a little bit, as we know what’s going to resonate with the audience. And if you can be a bit more flexible, then we will often come up with a good middle ground.

SVM: Are there particular trends or topics right now that are getting your attention?

CF: You know what’s interesting is that we’ve seen a real decrease in the AI theme reaching our audience in the first half of 2026. People are really oversaturated with AI, so I think the bar has gotten really high for what an AI topic would be that we would cover.

We’re after the stories that everybody in the industry needs to know. Like if there are big leadership changes at certain companies and understanding why, if you know there’s some huge revenue opportunity because of a new group of CMS reimbursement codes– what does that look like, and who’s leveraging it? I think it’s all the stuff that founders and businesses would want context on and to deeply understand, versus hearing about one company and what they’re doing. And we think about that for healthcare decision-makers, like employers, payers and health systems.

That’s where you’ve got to coach these folks to move from that mindset of having news literacy. For example, what are you reading about the industry, and then what can you share about what’s going on in the zeitgeist? Getting them out of the mindset of ‘me, me, me’ is really useful these days, especially where algorithms like X care about nothing else but what’s trending. Bottom line: companies can’t just talk about their messaging. You need to bridge the gap between what is happening in the world around you and what you can opine on —without going too far outside your comfort zone, but not staying in the safe space of corporate messaging.

That’s all that matters these days in new media — what is trending, and do you have a smart, original opinion on it? Nothing else.

At SVM, we know there is no single formula for building visibility and influence. We work with companies at every stage to identify the stories, spokespeople, formats and channels that best align with their goals—and with what they can realistically support. The results are bespoke communications programs grounded in a deep understanding of proven media strategies, emerging platforms and the rapidly changing ways audiences discover and engage with information. We meet clients where they are today while helping them evolve toward what’s next.