Online Campaigns – It Isn't Just a Beauty Pageant; It's about the Substance of the Message. It Is about Knowing Your Target Audiences' Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors in Creating Calls to Action

Background:  Oklahoma has not only one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the U.S., but also the seventh highest adult obesity rate in the nation. Lifestyles and behaviors such as low physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption, along with a high prevalence of smoking and obesity, contribute to most of the state's leading causes of death.

Program background:  The Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET), in partnership with the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH), developed a marketing campaign to encourage Oklahomans to eat more fruits and vegetables and to become more active. Shape Your Future (SYF) is the nutrition and fitness public education brand that encourages Oklahomans to eat better, move more and be tobacco free. Under this brand, a campaign targeting parents to encourage their kids to eat more fruits and vegetables and move for 60 minutes per day was developed. SYF operates through multiple communication mediums including social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for the SYF brand have become an actively used tool in the overall marketing mix and integrated marketing strategy. Resonating messaging and result-driven strategies have led to the growth of consistent social media engagement on all platforms. Since the launch of the SYF social media accounts in 2011, the communication team has successfully developed operations to manage daily brand messaging, utilized relevant real-time marketing campaigns and maintained an overarching uniformity and brand personality that is recognizable to fans and followers. SYF collects the majority of social media engagements through its mini-campaigns. The target audience is correlated to that of real-time events, social trends and holidays both locally and nationally. A mini-campaign is then developed to create conversation on all platforms while incorporating the brand messaging. The efforts of the SYF Healthy Foods Tournament, SYF Presents: The Yumscars and the Kevin Durant MVP Challenge mini-campaigns allow the SYF brand to connect with new audiences, while further encouraging communication with Oklahomans looking for daily inspiration to live a healthier life.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  With an increase in targeted mini-campaigns, the Facebook page has seen a 73% growth in stories created by users over the past year. This is a key metric that reflects how willing and often users interact and share brand messaging.

Conclusions:  It is vital to create clear goals and objectives prior to the creation of a campaign, such as a goal action rate percentage, conversations created and website conversions.  Results-driven and targeted mini-campaigns drive social engagements allowing fans and followers to join in the conversation on the road to making Oklahoma a healthier state.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Social media mini-campaigns do not always drive maximum results expected but should not be considered unsuccessful. It is important to construct overall goals of a social media account and measurable objectives for the mini-campaign itself to determine success.