Using Social Media to Improve the Reach of Community Public Health Campaigns: Lessons Learned from Hep B United Philadelphia

Hep B Free Philadelphia was developed to improve hepatitis B awareness, screening and vaccination. This coalition initiated a social media campaign to help reach these goals. Facebook and Twitter pages were developed, to promote local events and enhance coalition participation. In 2011, these outlets were successfully used to recruit 150 participants for a city-wide media and awareness event, and to recruit over 200 participants in a city-wide hospital based hepatitis B screening day. A 3-month video PSA contest, and two 5-week sweepstakes contests were then developed via Facebook, geared at increasing visits, enhancing student participation and generating media buzz. With the initiation of these contests, Facebook “likes” were increased threefold within one week, and Facebook reach improved from 75 to 348 people within two days. Daily visits and posts to the campaign's Facebook page also improved dramatically. With the increasing popularity of these social media strategies, news of the Facebook contests was picked up by multiple mainstream websites and local newspapers. Evaluation of these social media strategies included analytics of Facebook and Twitter “likes,” “followers” and “talk” as well as the number of PSAs and sweepstakes submissions received. Duration and sustainability of social media activity were also assessed, including both online and local participation in the campaign. Results indicate that innovative social media strategies, particularly targeting youth, can play an important role in disseminating public health messaging and improving sustainability of public health community coalitions. More research is needed to assess long-term effects of social media strategies on coalition outcomes.