Do you remember? When social media came into being, it was all about socializing with friends and family. However, it all slowly started changing its trajectory to extend beyond a connecting social site. Soon, businesses and activists began looking at these social platforms to leverage their cause. Today, it comes across as no surprise since the momentum a single post can gain from social media shares is insurmountable.
Not only does a vast audience get to see you and your cause, but they also get to comment and leave feedback which is a source of motivation. Meaningful discussions centered around public health found their way on social media too. These social media campaigns designed to shed awareness not only achieved their purpose but paved a path to discuss some critical social issues.
Through this article, we will discuss some social media campaigns that championed public health issues and worked. Here’s what you should know about them:
1. CDC Tips from Former Smokers
We all know, smoking is a major public cause, but are you aware? More than 16 million Americans are living with diseases caused by smoking. It is also not easy to cull, as most users have a heavy addiction to smoke. The CDC took it upon itself to raise awareness about the hazards of smoking by creating a campaign with images that would leave an impact.
These images consisted of real former smokers and the life they have had to lead after smoking. The campaign occurred over a live Facebook chat where smokers answered questions and shared their stories about smoking. Following this campaign, there was a definite decrease in people purchasing and smoking.
2. Burnet Institute Face Space
If you want to know about public health issues, consider doing an online master of public health to learn more and create your ads. Sexual health is also a public health concern. With the rising cases in STDS, there was a need to educate people on how to have a healthy sexual life.
The project used fictional characters to interact and post content on different social networking sites about sexual health. FaceSpace incorporated humor and narration to make for a successful social media campaign instead of another lecture on why sexual health matters.
3. The Movember Foundation
The Movember Foundation is all about men’s health issues. They are deeply involved in causing awareness among men by talking about issues regarding their health. The Movember Foundation has done a great job talking about prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health.
They run an annual social media campaign to encourage men to grow their mustaches to get a conversation going. Why are you growing your mustache? Anyone participating in the ad campaign will talk about men’s health to spread awareness and funds for hospitals.
4. Ice Bucket Challenge: ALS Association
ALS is a revolutionary worried system disease that affects the nerve cells that run along with the brain and the spinal cord, inflicting muscle manipulate loss.
To raise awareness about this disease, the ALS association introduced the ice bucket challenge. This challenge by far was one of the most viral social campaigns. Participants of this challenge managed to raise over $115 million in August of 2014 for ALS research.
This challenge came into the limelight by three men living with ALS and dumping buckets of ice water on themselves. They then tagged someone from their friends and family circle to carry on this challenge. Soon, 17 million people had joined the campaign, and over 400 million people watched these videos.
5. Know Your Lemons: World Wide Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer is a prevalent issue among women and, on a comparatively lower scale, affects men. In most cases, people with breast cancer are not aware that they have breast cancer. So the worldwide breast cancer organization designed images to illustrate the 12 signs of breast cancer.
The image showed 12 lemons sitting in an egg carton, and this image rapidly took over social media. The campaign taught men and women to recognize signs of breast cancer. Not only did this spread awareness about the disease but the removed stigma surrounding this condition. As the campaign is friendly and easy to understand, it hit an astounding number of shares.
6. World Health Day: World Health Organization
World health day is about raising awareness about universal health coverage. The page includes infographics, hashtags, and downloadable social media videos. The purpose behind this campaign was to get a discussion about health going on from across the world. Social media proved to be a fruitful platform as people talked about health coverage issues.
However, it also delved into how their respective countries are dealing with rising issues. Data like these are beneficial for research and predict how the problem in coverage may result in an outbreak of future diseases.
7. #IDEFY: Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood launched a social media campaign to inspire young people to use social media to speak about what they defy. These can be issues such as racism, homophobia, or slut-shaming. Participants shared an image of themselves with the word DEFY written across their fists.
Participants then hashtagged the picture with IDEFY. It aligned firmly with social activism and got people talking about social issues that we face today. It also proved to be a successful ad campaign. The community came together to stand for a movement that impacts us all.
Wrap Up
As we now know that social media is a lucrative space for ad campaigns. Many successful public health awareness campaigns found a place for themselves on social media. Movements such as anti-smoking, sexual health, and breast cancer awareness helped remove the stigma around these issues and get the people talking. It is safe to assume that most social matters will occur on social media with new problems and discussions on the horizon.
It has also proven to the population what social media can do to unite and bring communities together. No other platform holds the same power. Soon, social media may become the official source of information instead of news outlets.
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