Beat The Virus

How could we deliver trusted public health information to millions of people in engaging ways in the pandemic’s very noisy early days? Our answer – #BeatTheVirus (#BTV) – was a social media campaign that provided online influencers with scientifically vetted public health messaging and leveraged data analytics to target underexposed audiences online. We developed #BTV with a coalition of experts in public health, data analytics, media and marketing aimed at empowering people with critical information and resources they would need in their fight against COVID-19. Established in March 2020 as the pandemic emerged in the United States and running for 6 months, the campaign received more than 625 million impressions and 5.5 million engagements across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The campaign’s focus was to communicate – primarily through social media influencers – science-grounded messaging on proven public health practices in a manner that was publicly engaging (through creative communications) and dynamically distributed (through best-in-class analytics) across all audiences.