Social Media for Public Health Emergencies: Facebook, Twitter, and the Use of Innovative Channels for Message Dissemination

Background:  The goal of social media at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to complement traditional communication strategies and expand reach and dissemination of messages by utilizing non-traditional communication channels.  CDC also strives to make health information available in a format that is engaging, portable, and useful—often through the use of social media.  This approach is particularly important in times of public health emergency, when timely and far-reaching dissemination of health messages is critical.

Program background: Social media channels used in public health emergency situations are chosen to fit the communication objectives, target audience, and preferred style of engagement.  In the 2009 H1N1flu event, Facebook and Twitter were the most frequently used social media channels for information dissemination because they reached a large general audience and allowed the user to get updates in a timely way via the Internet or a mobile phone.  CDC videos posted to YouTube were also an important component of the social media response because they reached broad audiences but presented health messages in a visual and auditory way.  This presentation will outline the rationale behind choosing channels for different types of health topics, events, and target audiences.  The authors will also present the results of social media use for 2009 H1N1 flu and discuss implications for future public health emergencies and events.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Web analytics are collected for social media channels, when possible, and can include measures of clickthroughs and page views.  In addition to Web analytics, social media activities are evaluated through measures of user engagement, including number of fans, followers, or subscribers, and numbers of comments. At the end of the 2009 H1N1 flu event, the number of Facebook users who “like” the CDC page (created at the beginning of the response) was 55,078.  Followers of the CDCEmergency Twitter account grew from to over 1.2 million by April 1, 2010.  Throughout the course of the 2009 H1N1 flu response, links posted to Twitter received 481,183 “click-throughs.” CDC YouTube videos related to flu were viewed 3.15 million times during the response.

Conclusions:  Social media combines social interaction and technology in tools and applications that allow information to be disseminated widely and easily to reach target audiences, reinforce and personalize messages, and build a network of interested users.  The success of the 2009 H1N1 flu social media campaign demonstrates that a full-scale social media campaign, used in concert with traditional media approaches, can fulfill target audience needs for information and provide valuable forums for engagement with the key messages.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Strategy, implementation, and monitoring practices learned from this activity can inform future social media efforts for public health emergencies and can be useful for professionals in many different roles and types of organizations.