Social Media: A Health Care Reform Tool

By Keeley W. Stokes, PhD, Spark Policy Institute

As social media becomes more common in our everyday lives, developing a social media strategy is an essential part of many advocacy campaigns. Almost 75 percent of adult Internet users visit social media sites and many use more than one. Moreover, recent high-profile social media actions (such as the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls) have demonstrated the power of social media to call attention to causes. At the same time, this campaign and others like it (#YesAllWomen, for example) raise questions about whether this attention—often referred to as “hashtag activism”—can translate into real-world mobilization.

Although “clicktivism” (passively sharing online content) carries a significant risk of inefficacy, social media, when handled well, can be a stepping stone to greater engagement of volunteers and supporters. Project Health Colorado (PHC), a three-year effort designed to engage individuals and organizations in a statewide conversation about health care and how it can be improved, integrated a social media campaign into the overall strategy that included a website, Facebook page, Twitter account and paid media campaign (e.g., promoted posts on Facebook). In addition, PHC funded other organizations that used the social media strategy for public will-building: Colorado HealthStory, Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, 9Health Fair, Get Healthy SLV!, Colorado Children’s Campaign and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

An evaluation of the social media strategy employed by PHC and their grantee organizations found that there are five steps to follow to create powerful social media content:

• Initiate the conversation
• Interest your audience
• Influence opinions
• Incite action
• Integrate media strategies.

A new brief from The Colorado Trust, prepared by Spark Policy Institute, examines these “five ‘I’s” in more detail. Specifically, the brief looks at elements of each, using examples from the PHC campaign and how they combine to create an effective call to action in an era of information overload.

The brief is the fourth and final in a series that explores lessons learned from PHC. Each brief is designed to provide practical information that advocates, volunteers, nonprofits and others can use to further their health care and advocacy efforts. The first brief looked at strategies to successfully engage people in conversations about health care reform. The second brief examined the role faith leaders can play in social movements. The third brief shared tips on how advocates can successfully use storytelling to move people to action. Each brief will be accompanied by a webinar hosted by Spark Policy Institute. For more information and invitations to the remaining webinars, please contact Rebecca Kahn.