Using digital and social media for health promotion: A social marketing approach for addressing co-morbid physical and mental health

Objective– This study examines the effectiveness of a social marketing digital media strategy in improving health outcomes for people living with coexisting physical and mental health conditions.
Design– A four-stage strategic analysis and intervention mix were used as the theoretical framework to assess stakeholder needs and to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
Setting– Online and digital media.
Participants– Mental health consumers, carers, clinicians and service managers
Interventions– A digital media, social marketing intervention to designed to help improve the physical health of people living with mental illness. The strategy was developed using a co-design methodology and provided links to self-care resources, access to service providers, clinical tools for health professionals and links to existing successful rural programs.
Main outcome measure(s)– The main outcome measures were the number of people from each category accessing the media, making connections, and downloading resources.
Results– The program has resulted in more than 15 000 website hits, 3500 tweets and 14.5 million Twitter impressions with good bounce and download rates. The analysis suggested the materials were mostly used by clinicians and service managers using desktop computers.
Conclusions– Using a co-design approach, the study demonstrated the potential of a social marketing digital media strategy as a health promotion methodology. The paper has provided a framework for implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of digital social media campaigns that can help consumers, carers, clinicians and service planners overcome the challenges of rural health service delivery and the tyranny of distance.