Senior Living Sales Teams Enter The Influencer Era

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From adult children to online experts, senior living operators are increasingly targeting “influencers” to bring a new generation of residents into their communities.

In 2026, the U.S. is awash in influencers who sway opinions on everything from food and fashion to news and politics. Pew Research data from 2025 showed that about one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) get regular news from influencers, which the organization defined as “individuals who have a large following on social media and often post about news or political or social issues.”

More than 207 million people identify as content creators worldwide, 162 million of whom live in the U.S. Of those, 45 million work professionally as content creators. The creator economy is estimated to be worth $191.5 billion in 2025 and could grow to $528 billion by 2030, according to global market intelligence firm Coherent Market Insights.

Older adults and their loved ones are looking to these influencers for help making sense of the wider world or making decisions. But that is a role senior living operators increasingly believe they can and should play.

“We have a lot of different stories running around our prospects and their influencers based on culture, based on their past experiences, based on what their friends are saying,” Heritage Communities Chief Marketing Officer Lacy Jungman said during the recent SHN Sales & Marketing Conference. “So, we have to be armed and prepared to have multiple points of conversation that hit on everybody else’s experience.”

Operators have used social media to post images and share events from inside their communities, but this passive type of social media use won’t be what attracts new residents. Just making a handful of online posts every so often won’t be able to compete with the rise of influencer culture, Jungman told me more recently.

“Our decision-makers are looking for more engaging content as they are regularly getting influenced when they scroll through [Instagram] Reels and stories,” Jungman said. “This is a huge area of opportunity for our industry.”

I think this shows that the social media playing field is shifting from broadcasting to storytelling, and it illustrates how catching up to this shift will be critical in how operators capitalize on interest from prospective residents and their families.

In this week’s exclusive, members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze the rise of influencer culture in senior living and offer the following takeaways:

• Ways in which providers have evolved their social media strategies
• How senior living sales and marketing can learn from influencer culture
• Unpack why operators are preparing for an influencer-driven digital future

The rise of the senior living ‘granfluencer’

Providers in recent years have stepped up their social media strategies, from documenting daily community life to allowing residents to have direct input in marketing efforts. Today, these are standard operating practices for sales and marketing departments as tech-savvy older adults enter communities demanding greater access and connectivity.

Earlier this month, Cogir Senior Living announced a promotion paying a content creator a stipend to live in a Scottsdale, Arizona, community for one month and document their experiences. The effort is directed at challenging misconceptions of senior living communities by providing an authentic perspective of daily life, according to Cogir Director of Marketing Allyssa Phillip.

Cogir marketing staff partner with social media-savvy residents to showcase daily community life, from events to special occasions, with interview-style content online. The popularity of such campaigns are yet another indication the sector is moving away from polished social media campaigns and “showing” versus “telling” to create more authentic messaging.

“We try to ask questions that not only give perspective into what their daily lives and activities look like within our communities, but also their own personal stories of their lives,” Phillip told me. “We have a very niche demographic that not only has the time to do fun things and share them with the world, but they have a perspective that I think many of us look up to and respect.”

These efforts have helped remove the “ambiguity” around senior living, especially in the last two years. Influencers often have a parasocial relationship with their followers and speak directly to them. That is also a role that senior living operators can play by inviting older adults to ask them questions in a similar manner.

Jungman told me that there is “a lot at stake” with the industry’s reputation that still is associated with high-acuity and skilled nursing care. The stakes are high for senior living operators to rethink how they use social media, potentially even seeding more creative control to residents in order to achieve true authenticity. In 2026, Heritage Communities is going “all-in” on content creation, building the company’s own influencer and social media storytelling strategies.

Forty-two percent of Generation X adults, some of whom are now the primary decision-makers for senior living, are showing a growing reliance on social media when searching for apartments, according to HubSpot’s 2025 Social Media Research Report. This is an important signal for the industry. It suggests there may be a large, under-engaged group of prospective residents and families who are already using social platforms to explore housing options, including senior living, but are not yet being fully reached or informed.

It demonstrates the widening gap in how consumers are searching and how senior living operators are marketing their communities. Senior living communities are the ideal starting point for providers to harness the uniqueness of their residents and use that authenticity to attract newcomers.

Through a more relatable approach, senior living providers will be able to better highlight the lived experience of residents and potentially cut out having to spend, or spend as much, on robust marketing campaigns because authenticity will be the way operators capitalize on demand.

“This is very new for us and this industry, so we are hoping the [Granfluencer program] opens new doors,” Phillip told me.

How influencers and content creators can help demystify senior living

There are still many misconceptions surrounding the basics of senior living as operators work to educate families and older adults alike on the actual reality of living in a community.

Jaybird Senior Living partners with local businesses and elected officials for events and shares interactions online as a direct way to reach audiences that may not be familiar with senior living, helping to “destigmatize what senior living really is,” according to Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Christy Van Der Westhuizen. On the whole, some communities have embraced social media, launching Instagram and TikTok accounts to showcase activities, events and daily life.

At a Jaybird community in Lansing, Michigan, residents often capitalize on trending TikTok audio or dances and adapt them to show the energy and activity of their home, while showcasing residents in videos and posts.

“We need to continue beating the drum that we are active and personality-filled rather than a quiet, purely clinical setting,” Van Der Westhuizen told me.

Providers also face a tough challenge of more older adults being tech-savvy and preparing to age-in-place. Approximately three-fourths of older adults age 50 and older said they want to remain in their homes as they age. Another 73% want to stay in the same community they are in if they do have to make a move into senior housing, according to a 2024 AARP report.

Nonprofit life plan operator Mather has found success by partnering with residents who are content creators to showcase authentic community life. At its newest location, The Mather life plan community in Tysons, Virginia, the organization has attracted a younger, tech-savvy demographic of older adults, successfully leveraging their digital fluency to highlight daily life through online storytelling.

For example, Mather partners with a lifestyle influencer currently living within a community for content on Instagram where she embraces her age and fashion, while another resident focuses on local artists and daily life at The Mather. Another couple at The Mather manage a YouTube channel where they post compilations of their travel adventures with fellow residents.

“As our relationships with the residents expand, we may be able to partner with the residents on story ideas and concepts that co-present the Mather,” Senior Vice President of Sales Gale Morgan told me.

While specific to one community, these anecdotes show me that senior living operators can create new relationships with these residents-turned-influencers to shape marketing messages while keeping authenticity at the core of the content being posted online.

As residents become increasingly active on social media, senior living providers should identify those who are both willing and capable of sharing their experiences with a broader digital audience. However, there is a delicate balance between leveraging influencers and maintaining genuine authenticity.

“People connect with real people, not just through stock imagery or AI videos,” Van Der Westhuizen told me. “Older adult influencers can help break old stereotypes, show the joy and vibrancy that really exists in senior living and give families a much more genuine look at the experience.”

Moving forward, the providers that succeed will be those who share creative control with their residents, a strategy that will be essential for building the deep-seated trust that 2026 senior living marketing demands.

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