Using Digital Engagement to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance
By Amanda Westfall and Santiago Garcia
At Rain Barrel Communications (RBC) we are expanding our services to reflect a rapidly changing, digital world. With the expanse of the internet, more and more populations are quickly gaining access to new technologies, cultures, thoughts and ideas, all with the click of a mouse or touch of a screen. But this comes with a risk – as it’s now easy to share almost anything on the web, true or false, that can influence others to believe or act a certain way.
Promoting COVID-19 vaccine acceptancy
As COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled-out globally, we face a unique challenge to ensure each nation’s populations are adequately vaccinated, as per each country’s plan. Unfortunately, low rates of vaccine acceptance are a global concern, with rates lowering significantly in many regions of the world during 2020-2021. Mistrust, safety concerns and harmful misinformation threaten fragile COVID-19 vaccine rollout plans.
By applying digital communication and engagement approaches in our work, RBC can support countries to boost vaccine acceptancy within online and targeted demographics.
How we do it?
There are four key steps involved in building and implementing a digital engagement campaign that reduces vaccine hesitancy:
1. Evaluation research to define a baseline
Before creating or distributing any campaign materials we must first understand where we stand regarding vaccine acceptancy. How much of population accepts the vaccine? In what age groups and demographics? What types of content would best influence acceptancy for each population group?
In this step we identify portions of the population who are skeptical or undecided and determine how best to motivate them to accept the vaccine. This involves conducting desk research of national and international documents, studies, and KAP surveys and comparing them with information collected via different on-line anthropology platforms and social listening tools.
We study the main arguments for and against vaccines and a population’s reactions, feelings, fears, knowledge and attitudes on the topic. Our targeted audiences will include those who refuse but are unsure, those who are hesitant and have some refusal tendencies, and those who accept but are unsure. These are the targeted groups who have a greater possibility to change their attitudes and behaviors towards vaccine acceptancy.
Image: © Johns Hopkins University of Medicine: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/report/building-trust-in-vaccination
2. Building a strategy
Based on the results of the research, a coordinated and comprehensive digital engagement strategy is then developed, organized into five key areas:
A.“Why?” - We define the purpose of the strategy according to the behaviors and attitudes indicated in the research phase.
B. "Who?" - We indicate exactly what will be the participation of each specific demographic based on the results of the research phase. We identify COVID-19 champions and positive deviants to shift attitudes and inspire behavior change among peers and communities.
C. "What?" - We identify the type of content to be generated, the key messages that will produce a greater impact, and recommendations to adapt the messages to different contexts and formats required by social networks (i.e. duration of a video for each platform, graphic dimensions, semiotic elements to include, etc.).
D. "How?" – We provide guidance on how to roll-out a campaign. This involves micro-segmenting targeted demographics into communication participant groups with specific attributes and matching each group with targeted messaging. We then use the digital advertising tools offered by Facebook, Instagram, Google, and other digital platforms to insert these into narratives and stories that fuel vaccine hesitancy with fake news, misrepresentations and rumors. This can be complemented by “offline” community engagement approaches to reach and empower social influencers and decision makers at community level. Depending on the risk of transmission in a given community, this may involve design and facilitation of workshops, hackathons, trainings, and support groups. In high risk situations it may simply involve the design and distribution of print leaflets and materials to empower and guide social influencers on how to promote and model vaccine acceptance. In combination – both approaches help counteract false narratives – and to reduce vaccine hesitancy.
E. "What is the impact?" - We develop a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan of the activities to be carried out via online and offline channels. The instruments and indicators necessary to monitor the campaigns and their impact on the different audiences are defined.
3. Creating a toolkit
A toolkit is developed to complement the strategy and serve as a manual to help carry out the campaign. It includes templates and tools for understanding how to use each social network and enhance the messages, as well as complementary tools for database management, mailing, WhatsApp, Telegram and other social platforms. Templates are also developed to help guide the digital campaign methodology and M&E with guidelines for accountability mechanisms.
4. Implementing the Campaign
Depending on the client’s needs, the campaign is then implemented either by RBC, or the client with strategic support offered by RBC. This can involve a series of capacity building trainings for both the client’s communication and community engagement teams where we explain how to implement the strategy and toolkit.
Implementation involves engagement via online platforms with positive narratives and powerful stories, as well as promoting online and offline dialogue among scientists, policymakers, religious leaders, media and the public to address concerns while emphasizing the effectiveness of vaccines. The content is monitored and tracked to understand its impact and if changes are necessary during the course of the campaign.
We work hand in hand with local partners, providing a megaphone to amplify their online and offline programs: trusted leaders of communities, governments, civil society organizations, etc. who have local data and information that can help refine our approach and strategy.
How we can support your work
Rain Barrel Communications offers three types of support services in this area of work:
Design and implement a small-scale, local digital campaign targeting between 500,000 and one million people with micro-segmented key messages articulated in an online and offline approach.
Design and implement a large-scale, national digital campaign targeting more than a million people with micro-segmented key messages articulated in an online and offline approach.
Co-creation of a digital engagement strategy and campaign to be implemented directly by clients, and with structured capacity strengthening support and technical guidance each step of the way.
For more information, please contact Managing Director, Tomas Jensen: tomas@rainbarrelcommunications.com
You can read more about Rain Barrel Associate Amanda Westfall here.