Battling Superbugs: Using a digital landscape assessment to inform communications strategy

Background: Antibiotic resistance happens when germs develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them. These infections pose a serious threat to public health—by 2050, superbugs will be deadlier than cancer, killing an estimated 10 million people (Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, 2014). The U.S. government leads several initiatives to combat antibiotic resistance, including the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Challenge, a yearlong effort to accelerate the fight against antimicrobial resistance across the globe.

Program background: The objective was to enlist scientific and world leaders in the fight against superbugs for the AMR Challenge through digital advocacy and partnership efforts.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

In anticipation of launching the communications campaign, a communications assessment was conducted that triangulated data from stakeholder workshops, digital best practices, and most notably, a digital landscape assessment. Using a social listening software, 5,000 social media posts about antibiotic resistance were analyzed (data were from March 27, 2017 to March 27, 2018). Data were mapped by volume over the course of the year, enabling the team to identify conversation drivers and link them to external events such as breaking news. A content assessment was completed on a sample of the posts to identify key themes. The data set was analyzed by channel to understand where conversations were happening, as each social channel has a distinct audience and unique norms, and who the most influential authors were.

Key findings include: news drove conversation volume, lack of unified messaging or visual identity for antibiotic resistance advocacy meant partners were competing with one another for attention and possibly muddling messages, and the sophisticated nature of the target audience of scientists and business executives suggested creative materials needed to evolve to match the audiences’ taste.

Findings informed the communications strategy and the development of a creative campaign, including a video series, launch event at the UN General Assembly, social media, and print materials. More than 300 people attended the UN General Assembly side event and more than 16,000 people viewed a livestream of the event on Twitter. As a result of digital advocacy and partnership outreach efforts, 106 organizations signed on to the AMR Challenge at the time of the launch event.

Conclusions: By using our digital landscape assessment, we gained a richer understanding of our audiences’ needs and behaviors. This enabled us to create communications that fueled engagement and action.

Implications for research and/or practice: Unlike other research methodologies that rely on self-reported behavior, the digital landscape assessment captures authentic audience behavior. It is particularly valuable when triangulated with other data sources to provide a richer, more dynamic understanding of audience. This arms communicators with the knowledge they need to engage audiences and motivate behavior.