The Selection of Social Media Platforms for a Community-Based Youth Communications Program

Background: 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Violence Prevention developed a communications program, i2i: What are You Looking For?™ (i2i), to promote respectful, nonviolent dating relationships among 11- to 14-year-old youth in high-risk urban communities (YHRUC) as part of Dating Matters™, a comprehensive teen dating violence (TDV) prevention initiative.  Due to concentrated poverty, lack of resources, and exposure to community violence, this audience may be at an increased risk of TDV. In addition, few health communication programs have been effective in reaching this target audience and have focused on the specific topic area of TDV.

Program background: 

The i2i program was designed for implementation by four community Health Departments participating in the Dating Matters randomized control trial.  On behalf of CDC, Ogilvy conducted research to determine the best digital media platforms to effectively reach the YHRUC school-specific audience in these communities with limited resources and varying technical expertise of implementers.

Evaluation Methods and Results: 

The selection of digital platforms was based not only on audience research, but also on their strategic benefit to the unique structure of this community-based program.  On behalf of CDC, Ogilvy conducted extensive primary research, including 52 focus groups with YHRUC, in 2011 and 2012, to better understand the audience’s digital media habits and information-seeking preferences.  This research was supplemented by a landscape analysis of programs similar in topic or audience and their outreach tactics, as well as 8 co-creation workshops with YHRUC in 2012 and 2013. Finally, Ogilvy consulted in-house digital media experts to further examine the advantages and limitations of various platforms. Informed by this primary and secondary research, Ogilvy designed the i2i program to include two key digital components—community-specific Facebook pages and SMS programs.

Conclusions: 

The use of community-specific Facebook pages and SMS programs is a promising solution well-suited to i2i’s unique structure and objectives for several key reasons.  It effectively reduces the technical knowledge, cost, and effort required of the Health Departments to update and maintain online content. Additionally, the digital platforms provide efficient content development and sharing processes, allowing the program to cost-effectively communicate key messages through engaging graphics, videos, polls, and status updates.  Further, use of Facebook and SMS not only allows the program to reach kids where they are, but also encourages interaction and their participation in other components of the program through the exchange of information, resources, and activity prompts.

Implications for research and/or practice: 

i2i’s use of new media provides a smart, creative, and promising communication solution for this unique program, and also may serve as a model that can be easily replicated for other programs.