266706 Where Online Meets Offline: Using MeetUp.com Groups to Get People Vaccinated Against Influenza

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 : 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM

Amelia Burke, MA , Health Communications, Westat, Rockville, MD
While digital and social media provide platforms that go beyond exposure and awareness, they still present a challenge to public health communicators who struggle to use the medium to effect and measure behavior change. In order to achieve the goal of getting people vaccinated, CDC's 2011-2012 National Influenza Vaccination Campaign launched an innovative program with MeetUp.com, a social networking website where people with similar interests organize themselves online then meet up offline. MeetUp.com recruited 75 groups across the country to support the campaign by spreading flu vaccination messages and getting vaccinated together rather than hosting their normal MeetUp activity. Groups were picked because they were in a low vaccination location and/or they were a campaign target audience as supported by CDC data. A total of 17 groups got vaccinated together during the program, bringing the total number of people vaccinated to an estimated 300 people. Additionally, 55 other groups posted flu vaccination messaging for their group members. Each group has an average of 146 members reaching more than 10,000 people total. By working with a social media platform where actions are a natural part of the way users participate, the number of people vaccinated became a tangible goal for the campaign. This presentation will look at the overall program, how the channel was determined to be appropriate for the audience and the results.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate how social media can be utilized to effect health behaviors offline. Describe how health behavior change can be measured offline using social media metrics.

Keywords: Social Marketing, Immunizations

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have worked on multiple social media campaigns, including those on a national level, for public health programs and have developed a framework for planning and evaluating social media campaigns.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.