Abstract
Effective crisis and risk communication strategies are crucial to promote preventive measures, particularly during times of emergency such as the global SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. With its global reach, social media is a key source of news and information about COVID-19. However, the abundance of misinformation about personal protective measures that people post on social media, makes it imperative to develop a deeper understanding of effective messaging strategies. Improving the quality of information and strategy with which it is disseminated through social media is crucial to minimizing anxiety, panic and improving the adoption of sustainable preventive measures in addition to curtailing misinformation. Understanding the components of effective health communication strategies allows us to glean common methods to address misinformation which in turn lead to people adopting the appropriate preventive measures. The purpose of this article is to understand how effective social media communication strategies can be crafted to promote sustainable preventive measures and curtail wide-spread misinformation. Health organizations as well as communications organizations have made available information for effective social media messaging and more importantly serve as a gateway to other resources. We review their recommendations to identify common social media communication elements on the adoption of sustainable preventive measures and effective strategies for curtailing misinformation. We further review social media messaging during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks to evaluate the success of social media strategies and draw from lessons learned. We then create a set of best practices for developing and disseminating social media messaging regarding COVID-19.
Highlights
In less than 6 months SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has grown from a localized outbreak in Wuhan, China to a global pandemic (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, 2020)
Developing a set of best practices for crafting social media messages during COVID-19 and expanding their reach has the potential to improve the quality of information on social media
Information about personal protective measures must come from trusted health organizations or experts that have the most up to date information
Summary
In less than 6 months SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has grown from a localized outbreak in Wuhan, China to a global pandemic (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, 2020). The exponential spread has left countries and health officials scrambling to contain the virus and protect their citizens. There is no vaccine for COVID-19 and with an incubation period of up to 14 days, the virus has proven extremely difficult to contain (Lauer et al, 2020). The rapid rate at which the scientific community is learning about COVID-19 and personal protective measures have created a need for regular, accessible, up-to-date, and accurate information. Social Media During COVID-19 changes in our daily lives have had an enormous impact on our behaviors including where we turn for news. As the scientific community learns more, there is a dire need to be able to disseminate information immediately; social media provides a platform that can facilitate this
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