Ebola on Instagram and Twitter: How health organizations address the health crisis in their social media engagement

Abstract Although social media have been used by public relations practitioners as a key vehicle for crisis communication, little is known about how these platforms were utilized by public health organizations in infectious disease outbreak situations and how this may have shaped the publics’ responses to the outbreak on and off social media. Taking the approach of strategic health risk communication, this study examined Ebola-related social media posts by three major health organizations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, also known as Doctors without Borders), on Twitter and Instagram, focusing on the types of communication that were used during the outbreak, the content and context of these communications, and the responses they elicited from the publics. While both platforms were utilized by all three health organizations, the results suggest that Instagram may be a particularly useful platform for establishing meaningful, interactive communication with the publics in times of global health crises, as evidenced by significantly greater levels of engagement on the part of health organizations and the publics. Furthermore, our findings indicate that social media messaging may be most effective when it is used by health organizations that are familiar with and to the publics, and when it is based on the strategic use of risk communication principles such as solution-based messaging, incorporation of visual imagery, and acknowledgement of public fears and concerns. We discuss the results in the context of strategic health risk communication guidelines and implications for public relations practice.

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