Author: Jim

I mentioned in my CDC/H1N1 post that that effort was the
first of its size and breadth, but not that it was the first. The
first real effort to integrate social media into a large-scale public
health emergency communications campaign was a couple of years ago,
when a large amount of peanut butter products were recalled by the FDA
due to salmonella contamination.
In the opening throes of what would grow to be a massive recall, one
brand management consultant, Pete
Blackshaw, took it upon himself to
do a review of how the FDA was going about publicizing the recall and
making recommendations on how they might be able to do it
better,
especially in the realm of social media. His ten strategies seem like
no-brainers now, but three years ago, this was rare air for a public
health agency. They were as follows:

1. Leverage video to address concerns with empathy
2. Enable sharing of site content related to the recall
3. Create “safety satellites” on social networking sites
4. Create embeddable “issue widgets”
5. Overlay “No Shopping List” functionality on top of the product search engine
6. Build a simple “Event” blog on the FDA.org website
7. Video shopping guides
8. Leverage WhiteHouse.gov
9. Help refresh Wikipedia
10. Leverage visual search in the product database

Within the next week, Andrew Wilson, one of the original members of
the DHHS Social Media Team reached out to
Mr. Blackshaw and made note of the efforts that DHHS and FDA were
taking to improve their
response.
With the benefit of hindsight, FDA and DHHS (and ultimately CDC)
utilized a wide variety of Mr. Blackshaw’s recommendations and they’ve
since become the standard for public health social media outreach.
Mr. Blackshaw even followed up with a “Twitterview” of Mr.
Wilson.
The very coolest part of this situation isn’t that FDA and DHHS so
completely embraced social media in their efforts. The coolest part is
that they identified a detractor, reached out to them and strove to
improve their efforts to ensure that the emergency messages were able
to reach the largest potential audience effectively. No hubris here.
Just, “we’ve got a very important job to do, and in the midst of your
bashing us, you made some good points; let’s chat.”
This is an extremely important points because, ultimately, the tools
will change. Traditional media, social media, whatever the next new
media is. The best testament to being a best practice in the world of
social media and emergency management is this story. Openness. A
willingness to learn. Humility. Acceptance of all forms of
help.

I’ll admit it. If I have a blind spot in how social media is used in
public health emergencies, it is in the realm of mapping. And it’s a
shame because, in the volunteer tech communities out there,
crisismapping is the most tangible evidence of success. And frankly,
this is one area I believe will see rapid growth—and growing
legitimacy—in the coming year. Therefore, one of my goals next year is
to learn more about crisismapping and how it can help those of us in
public health.

And boy are there some great folks out there to learn from.

In public health the first, and most obvious, is the HealthMap
team. Comprised of researchers from
Boston, HealthMap utilizes 11 different data sources to plot, and
track, outbreaks of public health interest around the globe. The
coolest part of this project, because the idea really isn’t novel, is
the openness. Anyone with a smartphone or Internet connection can get
access to the research and Internet scraping that the team does.
Download the app here. A
number of for-profit compares do the very same thing, but none of them
can compete on price (especially one that is so attractive to
cash-strapped local public health departments).

Next up is the amazing group that is CrisisMappers.net. A group that
offers expertise in mapping and GIS with real experience in disaster
response is more than most of us can say about our employees, so this
volunteer group should be—and ultimately will be—seen as a resource to
be tapped. And if you doubt what they can accomplish, just see this
page about their activities after the Haiti
earthquake.

The big momma in this field are the folks from
Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a software developed to
help track, and map, instances of violence in African countries as a
way to identify politically motivated violence. The name, Ushahidi,
literally means, “testimony.” While this software has gained a ton of
believers overseas, it’s only a matter of time before it’s used
extensively in the US.

I hate that I can’t speak more intelligently on this topic, but feel
it’s simply too important not to talk about. If you have any
experience with the crisismapping world, or would like to learn more,
please leave a comment below.

Okay, this one might seem like a bit of a cop-out because it’s not
just one best practice. That’s right, we’re talking today about the
yeoman’s work done by the CDC during H1N1 influenza. And really, if
you complained, you might have a point. I mean, I could probably do a
12DaysofCDCsResponsetoH1N1 and it’d turnout well.

My focus is slightly shifted, though, and that’s why I think this counts.

Let’s look at everything CDC did during the H1N1 influenza pandemic:
multiple Twitter accounts, YouTube channel, a Facebook Page, a MySpace
account, widgets, freely distributed buttons and badges, syndicated
content, mobile websites, email listservs, text messaging programs,
and on and on. At the time, in public health, each of these was
cutting edge. And in public health emergencies, each of these was so
far ahead of cutting edge that it’s more appropriate to say they gave
us the first glimpse of what could be done, so others could be cutting
edge.

Now shift your focus a bit. Each of these was important, but the most
important part of this effort was the scope. This was a full court
press the likes of which had never been attempted by a government
agency. (Tomorrow I’ll talk a bit about what experience showed that
social media could be useful, but this is a whole ‘nother animal
altogether.) Not only was there a recognition that public health
information could be pushed in ways that didn’t involve a press
release, but a full-blown search for every way that the public
consumed information was conducted and then a concerted effort to
integrate that into the constellation of outreach and engagement was
undertaken.

Constellation. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. While each star is
beautiful and lovely, it’s only when they’re organized just so that
the underlying beauty shines through and makes the sum greater than
the parts. And this constellation did just that. According to one
source:

On Facebook CDC had frequent wall postings that primarily consisted of links to their information and news articles; most of these posting received multiple comments from fans. The CDC’s Facebook Profile Page went from having 7,000 fans in May 2009 (when it was launched) to more than 53,000 fans in December of the same year.

Also, the CDC’s three Twitter accounts had over 400,000 clickthroughs of flu-related tweets during 2009. Prior to the H1N1 outbreak CDC had fewer than 3,000 total followers. By December 2009, these three accounts combined had 1,251,936 followers.

During 2009, the CDC’s H1N1 Website had 248.5 million page views and more than 585,126 views of syndicated content on partner sites. The agency sent more 4.04 million emails with up-to-date information.

E-cards were one of CDC most innovative tools, the agency created more than 100 free Health-e-Cards (or “electronic greeting cards”) to send to friends, family, and co-workers. During 2009, there were 59,889 e-cards sent. The most viewed e-card, with 48,961 views, was called Flu Prevention for Health Professionals that had the message “Get a flu vaccine. Your patients are counting on you.”

As I said, every one of these would be impressive in a vacuum. But
when taken together, they demonstrate the true power of a
comprehensive social media outreach campaign.