Department of Neurology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
Grande International Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal.
PLoS One. 2023 Sep 8;18(9):e0291392. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291392. eCollection 2023.
Stroke is a major global health problem and was the second leading cause of death worldwide in 2020. However, the lack of public stroke awareness especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) such as Nepal severely hinders the effective provision of stroke care. Efficient and cost-effective strategies to raise stroke awareness in LMICs are still lacking. This study aims to (a) explore the feasibility of a social media-based stroke awareness campaign in Nepal using a cost-benefit analysis and (b) identify best practices for social media health education campaigns.
We performed a stroke awareness campaign over a period of 6 months as part of a Stroke Project in Nepal on four social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok) with organic traffic and paid advertisements. Adapted material based on the World Stroke Day Campaign and specifically created videos for TikTok were used. Performance of the campaign was analyzed with established quantitative social media metrics (impressions, reach, engagement, costs).
Campaign posts were displayed 7.5 million times to users in Nepal. 2.5 million individual social media users in Nepal were exposed to the campaign on average three times, which equals 8.6% of Nepal's total population. Of those, 250,000 users actively engaged with the posts. Paid advertisement on Facebook and Instagram proved to be more effective in terms of reach and cost than organic traffic. The total campaign cost was low with a "Cost to reach 1,000 users" of 0.24 EUR and a "Cost Per Click" of 0.01 EUR.
Social media-based campaigns using paid advertisement provide a feasible and, compared to classical mass medias, a very cost-effective approach to inform large parts of the population about stroke awareness in LMICs. Future research needs to further analyze the impact of social media campaigns on stroke knowledge.
中风是一个全球性的主要健康问题，2020 年已成为全球第二大致死原因。然而，由于公众对中风的认识不足，特别是在尼泊尔等中低收入国家（LMICs），严重阻碍了中风护理的有效提供。在 LMICs 中提高中风认识的高效且具有成本效益的策略仍然缺乏。本研究旨在：（a）通过成本效益分析，探讨在尼泊尔开展基于社交媒体的中风意识运动的可行性；（b）确定社交媒体健康教育运动的最佳实践。
我们在尼泊尔的中风项目期间，在四个社交媒体平台（Facebook、Instagram、Twitter、TikTok）上开展了为期 6 个月的中风意识运动，使用有机流量和付费广告。使用基于世界中风日运动的改编材料和专门为 TikTok 创建的视频。通过既定的定量社交媒体指标（印象、覆盖范围、参与度、成本）分析活动表现。
该运动在尼泊尔向用户展示了 750 万次。平均而言，250 万尼泊尔的个人社交媒体用户会接触到该运动三次，这相当于尼泊尔总人口的 8.6%。其中，有 25 万用户积极参与了这些帖子。Facebook 和 Instagram 的付费广告在覆盖范围和成本方面都比有机流量更有效。整个活动的成本很低，“每接触 1000 名用户的成本”为 0.24 欧元，“每次点击成本”为 0.01 欧元。
使用付费广告的基于社交媒体的运动为在 LMICs 中向广大民众提供中风意识提供了一种可行的、且与传统大众媒体相比非常具有成本效益的方法。未来的研究需要进一步分析社交媒体运动对中风知识的影响。
