Based on recent research, we noticed many health campaign designers have chosen to use social media to promote public engagement. Some health campaigns such as those for cancer are particularly noteworthy examples of raising public support and awareness. Illustratively, the research on National Breast Cancer Awareness Month(NBCAM) in America indicated that this annual health campaign engaged with the public to hashtag NBCAM by posting the topic “wearing pink”.  

The Twitter traffic peaked at the start of the month-long campaign with over two million [2,075,168] mentions of breast cancer while many health organisations and celebrities joined this online activity.

However, the outcome of raising public attention is not enough to evaluate the campaign’s efficacy. The campaign’s posts focused on support and awareness of breast cancer rather than on actual behaviours to prevent and treat. Hence, there are still significant areas in which to improve the campaign’s message impact. By using messaging to describe the desired action and explaining where to find the relevant information, as well as resources that support the promotion of changes in health behaviours, the audiences are empowered with the tools needed to make informed decisions.

 

Reference

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29313761

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10410236.2016.1242035?src=recsys&journalCode=hhth20

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3971364/

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/communication-framework.pdf