How to Develop a Digital Communications Vaccine Strategy

In this blog I'm going to share with you three ways in which you can master vaccine communications on social media. 

First of all let me tell you that it's an absolute myth that people only read headlines and are engaged by using clickbait. 

It's definitely not the truth. 

It always gets me a little bit frustrated and annoyed when I hear politicians and public figures talking about 16 to 24 year olds and social media in the one sentence, and that is the extent of their understanding - that social media is for younger people because they don't read newspapers, they don't listen to radio and they don't watch tv. 

These are all broad sweeping statements, that in fact do not match up with the statistics.

If you've listened to some of my youtube videos before, you will understand that I say do not bring an opinion to a data party. 

Let's get our stats on the table and let's really understand the demographics that are tapping into multi-device channels and also getting their news from multiple sources. 

But perhaps they are following a couple of professionals and subject matter experts that they trust and they're following them around the various digital news and social platforms. 

1 - Get your vaccine story straight

One tweet is not going to cut it. 

If you really want to develop a vaccine communication strategy for online, you've got to take the customer and the public on the journey. 

What is the communications journey from me asking the question, "Why should I take the vaccine?" to me making a decision to register for my vaccine appointment online? 

You need to map that out for every single citizen, cohort in your country, that's the first step, understanding the digital journey and mapping the triggers, the needs, the questions, the queries, the hopes and the concerns to that journey and making sure that you have transparent and long-form content in your answers. 

2 - Multi-platform content

You have to create content for a multi-platform and an omni-channel world. 

It's not good enough to put 90% of your effort into one channel and then pepper the remaining 10% across a number of channels. 

That's not going to work.

In fact the audience segmentation exercise that you undertake will inform you of what channels. 

Let's not forget about device;

Mobile is king but we also must think about desktop, tablet and also in-app communications. 

3 - Look at the data

Understand where the gaps are, understand where there are still share of social voice issues, where you're not commanding it, where perhaps the bad actors and the anti-vaxx movement are controlling the narrative or the conversation online. 

The data will inform you at every step of the way. 

We don't just look at data at the end of a campaign, we actually look at the data in real time.

Especially for something as critical as vaccine communications. 

Listen, don't ignore moderation, don't ignore the comments, do engage in social listening. 

It is not big brother and that's the topic that I'm going to deal with in another video. 

But remember vaccine communications should be spearheaded by subject matter experts.

The public should see a little bit of them in the storytelling and also in the content that you're creating, give them as much information as they need, engage in social listening to understand where the gaps are, and look at your data to understand where you're making an impact and where you need to make a better impact.

Joanne Sweeney

Public Sector Marketing