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Background: Twitter is an online social networking and micro-blogging website were users can share information in real-time through updates. Twitter currently reports over 150 million registered users who are sending out over 55 million tweets on a daily basis. Twitter is proving to be a valuable social media tool for health communications, as it enables an immediate connection to followers and their existing networks, expands reach to new audiences, and facilitates engagement with health information. This presentation discusses the results and implications of a recent study conducted to evaluate CDC’s use of Twitter.
Program background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is actively participating in Twitter as part of a larger social media strategy to expand the reach of CDC health and safety information to increase the potential impact on health behavior. One of the primary goals for CDC’s participation in Twitter is to leverage the popularity of Twitter as a means of quickly and widely disseminating accurate health messages. CDC’s Division of News and Electronic Media currently manages three CDC’s primary Twitter profiles, CDC Emergency, CDC Flu and CDC eHealth, which collectively reach over 1.3 million followers.
Evaluation Methods and Results: In March 2010, CDC conducted an evaluation of CDC’s three primary Twitter profiles in order to guide improvements in CDC’s use of Twitter to disseminate health and safety information. The objectives of the evaluation were to measure user satisfaction, collect feedback on how to improve message content, identify types of information users would like to receive, and collect demographic information about CDC’s Twitter followers. Twitter users were invited to participate in the survey through tweets on each of the three profiles, and through email announcements via CDC’s GovDelivery email update service. A total of 573 participants completed the 17-question survey. Across all three profiles, 58% of participants were female, 49% were between the ages of 18-39 years, and 45% have an advanced degree. Overall satisfaction levels were high, with 95% of survey participants stating they were satisfied or very satisfied with CDC’s tweets. Survey participants found CDC’s tweets to be credible (91%), informative (85%), and relevant (80%), however only 55% of participants found CDC’s tweets to contain actionable information.
Conclusions: Initial results indicate that Twitter can be a cost-effective means for expanding reach to new audiences and increasing health impact by quickly and widely disseminating credible, accurate health information. By soliciting user feedback and implementing improvements, CDC’s evaluation efforts aid the agency in using the channel more effectively to reach its target audiences.
Implications for research and/or practice: Twitter is proving to be a valuable public health tool to deliver health messaging and critical behavioral change information that can significantly contribute to the health, safety, and well-being of hundreds of millions of people globally. The speed with which information is shared through Twitter and its broad reach make Twitter an integral component of a comprehensive health communications strategy.