Like, Tweet, Follow: Crafting a Social Strategy to Influence Behavior Change

Background:  Each year, 7,500 Oklahomans die from a smoking-related illness, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, smoking costs Oklahoma $1.62 billion in related healthcare costs each year. 

Program background:  The Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline (OTH) was created from funds allocated to the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) through the Master Settlement Agreement. Since 2003, OTH has served more than 300,000 Oklahomans. OTH uses traditional and non-traditional media designed to reach tobacco users. Social media is an integrated tactic in the overall brand campaign that educates and engages tobacco users. A variety of social platforms are utilized to connect with tobacco users including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. On Facebook alone, there are 200,000 Oklahomans 18 years of age or older that have expressed interest in the topic of tobacco. The OTH social team reaches users through a content mix of social media advertising that speaks directly to users through motivation and resources, videos, pre-approved daily postings and social mini-campaigns. Utilizing sentiment and keyword monitoring, the social team reaches out directly to users who are discussing tobacco on social media and offers support. Geotargeted search monitors for keywords appearing in Oklahoma, such users posting about “smoking, quitting smoking, cigarettes” and more. This is done through free tools such as Hootesuite, as well as sentiment monitoring through a more robust set of tools.  To encourage conversations and positive engagement, OTH responds to comments with “social badges” congratulating users on quitting. A communication guide is utilized to ensure timely responsiveness and positive brand management with pre-approved messaging to handle any type of engagement. Through the use of social mini-campaigns and overall social efforts, OTH is able to generate direct conversions. For example, the 2015 Through With Chew campaign resulted in 1,983 total engagements. Additionally, total Helpline registrants increased by 20 percent compared to the week prior with a 33 percent increase in web only registrants. In addition, social media traffic to the OTH website in 2015 averaged a 15.29 percent conversion rate, reflecting the qualified and targeted traffic social media provided to the site. Through these efforts, the OTH social media channels have developed into a community space for quitters and supporters. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  A key evaluation indicator used to measure engagement is the number of stories created by users. User created stories demonstrates a willingness to actively share brand messaging. Through the OTH social media strategy, the Facebook page has seen a 98.35 percent increase in stories created. The social pages are evaluated monthly for engagement rates and website conversions, or the number of times social users click sign up for Helpline services on our website. This information and user data is considered when mapping strategy.

Conclusions:  Through strategic original content and targeted messaging, social users are motivated to quit tobacco and inspired to support each other through communication on a variety of platforms. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  Linking social media engagement to tobacco cessation is challenging; however, through consistent metric reporting the health communication team is able to demonstrate social media engagement as a strong contributor to overall efforts of the OTH.