SC spends $1.5M on social media influencers to promote COVID vaccines, target young people
In September, USA Today’s Spa Travel Expert Ava Roxanne Stritt posted something on her Instagram account that didn’t have anything to do with a relaxing spa visit.
“I decided to get vaccinated for many reasons,” Stritt shared with her 75,000 followers. “I wanted to protect my family, friends and the world, but especially my community. And of course, I wanted to travel and not feel that I am putting others at risk. Being vaccinated allows me to move forward with my life with more certainty than before.”
Stritt then shared the post with her 32,000 Twitter followers on Oct. 27, encouraging people get information about COVID-19 from knowledgeable sources such as the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
It’s part of a campaign where the state’s health agency along with the state education department are spending $1.5 million to have social media influencers encourage people to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
The agencies are working with California-based Xomad to find the social influencers to post content on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
DHEC’s efforts with social media influencers comes as 62.9% of the state’s eligible population has received at least one COVID shot and 55.1% has been fully vaccinated.
Vaccines are now available for people 5 and older, and health officials believe social media influencers will target younger people who have been harder to reach with the agencies’ messaging.
“Trying to reach that demographic is a high priority, not just for us but for public health officials across the country, and using every available means to do that is the most responsible thing we can do,” said DHEC spokesman Ron Aiken.
South Carolina has tasked Xomad to find at least 240 influencers in South Carolina with between 1,000 and 150,000 followers on social media platforms to promote the vaccine.
The state agencies want to see at least 1,380 posts mainly on Instagram and TikTok, with posts shared on Twitter and Facebook, with the hopes the posts will be seen at least 6.2 million times, according to the contract.
The contract for the program runs through August.
Before the signing the contract with Xomad, DHEC’s public service announcements and social posts featured unpaid volunteers, Aiken said.
Money for the advertising program is coming from a federal supplemental coronavirus response package that was adopted in December.
“The campaign’s goal is to share accurate information about vaccinations and amplify local South Carolinians’ rationales for getting vaccinated,”Aiken said.
This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 10:05 AM.
