Shot of Prevention, A Blogging Success Story

Background:

While a wealth of information is available on the internet about vaccines and their safety, often this information is incorrect or confusing. The vaccine community concurred that there needed to be a space on the internet where parents, health professionals and advocates could have access to, and share, evidence-based information about vaccines.  ECBT created www.vaccinateyourbaby.org, the www.shotofprevention.com blog and the "Vaccinate Your Baby" Facebook (FB) page for this purpose.

Setting: Internet

Population: Internet usage statistics reveal that nearly 74% of Americans are online and an estimated 75 – 80% of users search for health information online.  70% say the information they encounter online influences their disease treatment decisions.

Project Description: ECBT created the blog “Shot of Prevention,” and in doing so established a space on the Internet where meaningful dialogue and conversation about vaccines occurs. The main contributor is a well educated mother of five with extensive marketing experience. The blog chronicles her attempt to better understand vaccines and her writing style makes the topics both approachable and easy to understand. While the blog does not give medical advice, it links to medical information, and often features guest posts from health care professionals and prominent vaccine advocates.  

Results/Lessons Learned: The blog has proven to be a successful means to distribute information about vaccines on the Internet. Through posting links to the blog on the Twitter feed and FB page, ECBT has steadily expanded the blog readership and involved many people in the vaccine conversation. Through FB advertising and various cross promotion efforts, ECBT has experienced a FB growth of over 300% since 2009, with approximately 6,000 followers currently "friends" of the page. Blog conversations spill into FB and vice versa.  A recent blog received 4,900 views and nearly 500 comments.  Major reporters and newscasters read the blog and follow the Twitter feed, viewing both as valuable sources of information about vaccines.