SOCIAL MEDIA FOR MEDICAL AWARENESS SERVICES - EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIAN PR AWARDS WINNING CAMPAIGNS

Abstract

Employing a collective case study approach, I intend to assess the degree in which the PARC principles for successful social media strategies have been implemented in two Romanian PR Awards winning campaigns, at the medical services section, in 2017 (Votez pentru sănătate/ I vote for health - Asociaţia Română a Producătorilor Internaţionali de Medicamente, Golden Award for Excellence, and Laboratorul Central – arta diagnosticelor precise/ Central Laboratory – the art of precise diagnostics - Regina Maria Reţeaua Privată de Sănătate, Silver Award for Excellence). The four PARC principles that I will take into account refer to: participatory (interaction with users), authentic (engaging in conversation), resourceful (providing audience with helpful information) and credible (valuable and trustworthy information). Besides the four PARC principles, offline engagement will be also considered since it may generate viral effects. The research questions will focus on the online strategies used in the campaigns, the use of authentic and credible digital story telling for medical services, the degree to which offline engagement is activated in the awareness campaigns, and the extent to which online and/or offline engagement involve the sharing of content on medical services. The findings of this study revealed two main aspects: a) the target audience’s degree of participation throughout the public campaigns for medical services under analysis does not depend on the number of posts, but on the content of posts and on the political situational context; b) Romanian health-care organizations should be more aware of the advantages of the social media role of a community-builder.