Raising the Profile of Glaucoma Messages Through a Social Media Engagement Campaign

Background:  Glaucoma is a major cause of vision loss in the United States, affecting 2.7 million Americans. People at higher risk include African Americans over age 40, everyone over age 60 (especially Mexican Americans), and people with a family history of the disease. There is no cure for glaucoma, but research has shown that early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent vision loss. Left untreated, glaucoma can lead to vision loss and even blindness

Program background:  The National Eye Health Education Program (NEHEP) of the National Eye Institute (NEI) established the Glaucoma Education Program to increase awareness about glaucoma. Glaucoma Awareness Month (GAM), observed every January, plays an important role in achieving this goal. For GAM 2013, NEHEP implemented a multichannel strategy to promote glaucoma education and awareness among people at higher risk of glaucoma, their families, and friends, and with NEHEP Partnership organizations. Traditional media outreach, such as print and radio placements, was combined with a social media campaign that incorporated bilingual glaucoma education messages and highly shareable web-based resources. NEHEP developed an umbrella theme and tagline to unite GAM with NEHEP glaucoma messages and make them trending topics during the observance. Existing glaucoma materials were updated to incorporate a GAM-specific theme and tagline as well as reflect new research findings. New media products, such as an infographic and on-demand webinar, helped to engage audiences and encourage them to share these resources with others.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The distribution of educational materials, implementation of traditional media outreach, and enhancement of a social media presence increased visibility for glaucoma and NEHEP. Outreach efforts multiplied organically. Partnership organizations and collaborators ordered 14,646 glaucoma resources to incorporate into their activities. Web-based materials and messages were shared via social media and tracked using social media metrics. Compared with previous months, the virality rating doubled and NEHEP generated more likes and shares per impression. In fact, there was a record engagement among NEHEP social media pages:  More than 319,000 Twitter followers and 34,000 Facebook followers were exposed to NEHEP messages in January 2013. The 2013 GAM media push garnered more than 111,932,363 print, online, and broadcast impressions and 79,659 potential impressions via NEHEP social media channels alone.

Conclusions:  A social media campaign can increase the reach of eye health education messages, particularly when coordinated with a national observance and direct-to-consumer outreach. NEHEP carefully structured its communication campaign to reach specific audiences through traditional and new media channels, as well as intermediaries. These approaches contribute to increasing awareness of glaucoma among people who may be at higher risk for the disease, their families, and friends.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Reduced funding for health communication campaigns requires that practitioners find effective ways to boost the reach of their messages. A social media strategy that complements traditional media outreach and incorporates lifetime data tracking, traffic pattern analysis, and strategic placements can ensure that audiences receive information in different formats and from different sources, thereby increasing exposure to messages