Best Practices and Lessons Learned From the Implementation of a Data-Driven Content Syndication Strategy to Improve Health Communication Efforts

Background: Content syndication is becoming a key way for health agencies to broadly share online health information and meet growing audience demand for up-to-date reliable health-related content across the web. Syndication allows multiple partners to subscribe to and automatically display up-to-date content on their webpages. The groups providing this content benefit by strategically reaching new audiences and increasing exposure to and reach of messages. The websites displaying syndicated content benefit by utilizing a low-cost, simple way to add reliable content without losing visitors by linking to outside websites.  In addition, syndication helps meet the Open Government Initiative and Healthy People Goals for improving health information dissemination by improving reach of health messages and allowing for strategic placement of content in more locations for greater access.

Program background: The FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) recently piloted a content syndication project in collaboration with partners at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups at the FDA. The goal was to more widely disseminate important health and regulation information while delivering resource-strapped partners and health groups free, timely, relevant, and accurate web content.  Partners benefit as they can now provide free tobacco-related web content and open up resources for other efforts. A major part of the pilot was to develop a data-driven strategy for developing, disseminating and evaluating the content used in the syndication project.  This presentation outlines the FDA Center for Tobacco Products’ strategy for syndicating web content, highlights best practices for developing and disseminating content via content syndication platforms and presents lessons learned. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  To evaluate this effort, CTP collects web analytics to measure performance, by reviewing the number of views, the increased reach and the number of click-throughs.  CTP will also analyze operational metrics to measure the trends in the number signed up to syndicate the content, the number of pages syndicated and the number of requests for new pages.  Engagement metrics will be analyzed to see if the syndicated content helps improve the time spent on partner sites as well as the number of increases in the use of engagement tools, such as widgets and videos that appear on the syndicated pages.  In addition to web analytics, these activities will be evaluated via surveys with partners, stakeholders and other users. Results will be available for the conference presentation.

Conclusions:  Consistent messaging via different media and distribution points builds trust and retention of key public health messages.  Currently, the vast majority of sites do not syndicate content—which creates a huge opening for public health groups to provide credible, timely and accurate content to sites that target their audience base.  In the next three years, with proactive marketing, augmented content and content bundles designed for key partners, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products estimates an increase in reach of web content by as much as a third.

Implications for research and/or practice: Content syndication allows us to go where are audience is online and helps us deliver high-quality health communication messages in a timely and efficient manner to improve message delivery.