Using social media to promote quitlines – 5/27/10

Q: Have any states used a social media strategy (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, for example) to promote calls to the Quit Line? If so, what were the results and lessons learned?

A:

1. California: I recommend that you contact the tobacco control program for Berkeley. The Berkeley High School Health Center has an established text messaging system which students sign-up for and students encourage their peers to sign-up for the text messages. They promote the Great American Smoke-Out, World No Tobacco Day, Earth Day, etc. through the system.

   Response from City of Berkeley Public Health: Our Text Messaging Service was initiated last year by our High School Health Center and was used primarily to remind students of appointments. They offered to also send out some text message reminders about school wide health events such as the lunchtime activities associated with the Great American Smokeout. Program details:

   • Company: Internet Sexuality Information Systems (ISIS).
   • Contact: Allegra Madsen, (510) 835-9400, allegra@isis-inc.org
   • Cost:Approximately $10,000. We received a free pilot to run it this year and we were quoted that amount to continue for the next year.
   • Results: Have you measured responses? Not officially, but wanted to do that over the summer. Students have anecdotally said that they enjoy receiving the text messages and look forward to them.
      
2. West Virginia: Our Division of Tobacco Prevention is very excited to be utilizing social media in our ARRA-funded (Category III) quitline efforts. We just launched this intervention to specifically reach the 18 – 34 year old population on April 1st, 2010, but already have great results to report: in the first month, we had 147 enrollees (age 18 -34)!

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