The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Using Social Media to Drive the Internet Conversation
Ashoka’s Changemakers, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Vulnerable Populations Portfolio, launched a competition entitled “Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing” to explore innovations that allow individuals, families, communities, and society to move past narrow perceptions of mental health and expand the understanding of and collective involvement in finding solutions. The competition was envisioned as a way to de-stigmatize mental-health issues by rewarding ideas along those lines.
Goals
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) wanted to explore and identify exciting, provocative ideas that challenge the status quo and remove the barriers that prevent people from getting the mental-health care they need, especially among vulnerable populations. The foundation also wanted to bring together and engage a community of people who are committed to breaking down stigmas and improving individual and community wellbeing by improving access to mental-health care. They also wanted to increase exposure for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and its efforts in the area of mental health, as well as its participation in the Internet conversation on de-stigmatizing mental health. On the foundation’s behalf, Wainger Group partnered with Tuvel Communications to create excitement about the competition; drive traffic to the competition website; and increase participation in the competition through nominations, entries, and discussions.
Strategy
Wainger Group/Tuvel employed a strategy of finding the right people, crafting a valuable message and then following best practices to deliver completely personalized one-on-one communications, with each message clearly coming from a real person. By picking up rocks—that is, looking in unusual or new places—on the Internet, Wainger Group/Tuvel was able to connect the publishers and social media pundits who are the most passionate about the issue and whom others respect and listen to.
In conducting the campaign, Wainger Group/Tuvel reached out by beginning to build relationships within the mental-health community by listening to the conversation and responding with information in a timely fashion. Reaching people on their turf allowed blogger contacts to first write about the competition, then visit the website, and finally enter the competition themselves; this became a two-pronged strategy by creating an opportunity for those who wrote about the topic or the competition became participants in it as well. We also employed a strategy of asking bloggers and other social networkers for referrals to others who might have been interested in the topic. Many of those responding to our call-to-action came from publishers and others whom we initially approached simply to expand the conversation and raise awareness of the issue and the competition.
Tactics
Wainger Group/Tuvel initially reached out to bloggers with a customizable e-mail message developed specifically for this campaign. The word spread organically to Twitter and social networks such as Facebook. As people began to see the message on Twitter, many of them “retweeted” or passed it along. Blog readers also began to comment on competition postings. The e-mails sent to each blogger made it easy to pass the campaign message along to others, and that is what exactly what happened—bloggers used the sample posting that Tuvel included in the individualized e-mail message.
Tuvel made inroads with social service providers, religious institutions, law enforcement agencies, social worker organizations, family and patient groups, health care providers and advocacy groups—all involved with the topic of mental health and identified as appropriate audiences for this message and the competition.
Results
Initial research by Wainger Group/Tuvel produced a list 300 of appropriate social media influencers. This list grew to 350 bloggers, social networkers, Twitter contacts, e-mail list publishers, and web forum owners. These 350 contacts produced 72 links and references to the mental health-competition. The campaign garnished a 20.5% response rate—a gratifying double the initial projection of 10% (an ambitious goal to begin with, since a typical direct response rate is 0.5%). Results include those contacts who took action or posted, wrote about, and passed along information about the competition.
One result of the campaign was a positive impact on the RWJF’s ranking in search engines.
Campaign efforts also produced market research and identified sector issues simmering below the surface, which is information that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation can use for the foundation in future competitions. As a result of campaign efforts, several leading mental health groups approached the foundation to explore alliances in this issue. Wainger Group/Tuvel also began to build deep relationships within the mental-health community on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The campaign also affected overall competition traffic, nominations, discussions, and entries. Indeed, many of those responding said they were visiting, nominating, or entering the competition because of the campaign. The campaign did a great job of spreading the word while increasing awareness and excitement about the RWJF competition and increasing the conversation on mental health. The results demonstrate that the Wainger Group/Tuvel Communications had the right message for the right people at the right time.
Achieving Similar Success
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