Health site The Mighty has built a real community around personal stories and shared experiences rather than medical information. Its content, which gets 100 million monthly views across all platforms, gets more social engagement than the top 10 health sites combined.
Founder and CEO Mike Porath, through his experience parenting a daughter with a rare disease, saw an opportunity to build a platform that, through stories, connects millions of people facing health conditions. He began his career as a journalist at ABC News, where he was the network’s first overseas digital reporter and where his reporting from Kosovo was awarded the top prize in online journalism. He has held a variety of writing, editing, producing and executive roles at ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times and AOL. Porath is also on the board of directors and fundraising chair of Dup15q Alliance, a non-profit organization that supports people with Dup15q syndrome, which includes his daughter.
The fast-growing digital health platform has resisted traditional forms of digital advertising, but is now going to allow brands to join the community in a very real and transparent way. This offers a solution for healthcare brands, including pharmaceuticals — which often struggle to gain consumers’ trust — to find ways to get real attention and engagement with their ads.
