Louisiana’s Department of Health enlisted XOMAD to activate locally trusted community messengers to promote COVID-19 vaccinations and combat misinformation.
The Challenge:
The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) is the state health agency of Louisiana. It is responsible for protecting and promoting the health of all Louisianans. LDH works to prevent disease, promote healthy behaviors, and ensure access to quality healthcare.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Louisiana remained steadfastly vaccine-hesitant, regularly ranking near the bottom of most vaccinated states in the country. Mistrust and misinformation ran rampant among Louisianans as LDH sought ways to dispel myths and provide trustworthy information, especially to minority populations.
LDH tasked XOMAD with executing a holistic, multiplatform, digital door-to-door campaign to remove politics from the COVID conversation. The program was aimed at combatting misinformation about the vaccine, educating Gen Z and ethnic minority Louisianans that the vaccine was safe and effective, and providing official resources on how to get the vaccine.
XOMAD Solution: #SleevesUpLA
Utilizing XOMAD’s proprietary technology engine, LDH and XOMAD identified, vetted, and engaged 113 locally trusted Louisanans with followings between 1,000 and 150,000 on social media throughout a multi-phased program that reached the target audience multiple times with multiple pieces of unique content – critical for generating the frequency necessary to change minds and drive action.
Once deployed, creators shared their personal, compelling stories on why they chose to get vaccinated and what #BringBackLA meant to them, as well as shared resources from the health department, encouraging audiences to speak with a healthcare provider.
To help LDH move more quickly and to develop deeper trust relationships with the creators, they were onboarded onto The Council, XOMAD’s proprietary platform for clients and creators to co-create and collaborate. On The Council, LDH engaged creators to test messaging, gauge audience sentiment, disseminate feedback and deploy messengers with agility.
XOMAD’s Council gave LDH the ability to update messaging in real-time to address breaking events and emergencies, including a hurricane impacting the target audience, which occurred during the course of the campaign.
In the Council, XOMAD and LDH provided creators with pre-made, LDH-approved content (PSAs) to share with their social media followers about updates, events, resources, and more information on the importance of getting vaccinated.
The Results:
- In the five-phase program from September 2021 through July 2022, 113+ trusted Louisiana-based social media messengers posted over 1.3K social posts that resulted in more than 17 million impressions. Messengers shared their reasons to #SleevesUpLA, including why they vaccinated their kids, and encouraged followers to speak with a healthcare provider for questions (or head to @SleevesUpLA), and spoke about what #BringBackLA meant for them.
- The local trusted messengers shared more than 625 PSAs, or 2,765 frames of information to their audiences with facts and updates from LDH, constantly keeping Louisiana residents informed and up-to-date on vaccine and COVID information.
- During the campaign, there was a 9.03% increase in vaccination rate, and when the Louisiana messengers posted in higher volumes there was a strong data correlation between campaign impressions and vaccine uptake!
- 67.3% of creators were minority creators, reaching an estimated 89.6% of Black residents, and 84.7% of all minorities, in Louisiana.
The campaign generated overwhelmingly positive comments and created open dialogue, including through questionnaires, within the digital and real-world communities of the creators. Out of 4.6K comments, only 0.8% were negative.
XOMAD’s successful campaign with LDH is just one sample in a large library of public health programs. Through XOMAD’s work in Louisiana, the department was able to educate, persuade and drive vaccinations among target individuals and their families.
Want to learn more about how to use social media messengers to increase awareness? Get in touch today.