The growing use of YouTube as a means to reach specific healthcare audiences is growing. I've often written about the remarkable utility of YouTube in putting together public service announcements (PSAs) that can be picked up by target audiences and passed along to others, Tweeted about to audiences and essentially reaching the people you want to reach. The historic alternative has been to circulate PSAs to various stations and hope that they run it. On top of that you have to hope they run it during the Evening News and not during the 3 AM monster movie, where you may reach one part of your target audience – insomniacs.
Here is an example of three PSAs recently put on by the American Cancer Society on their YouTube channel. They are each 30 seconds and mix humor with a simple message. Check them out. Pass them along.
Here is a great one for mommy bloggers:
Here is one for clever geeks:
Here is one for married couples:
Here is my favorite
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Now, while these are all good, one aspect of the use of these kinds of PSAs is to make them highly directed. Each of these vids is attempting to reach a very wide audience. In fact, the use of viral marketing and YouTube combined is actually much better when aimed at more specific audiences. That is a good reason by it is not a good idea for pharmaceutical companies to just transfer DTC ads from television to YouTube – it doesn't work. They are two different media and it pays to maximize the benefit of YouTube and viral marketing by creating highly directed messages for specific audiences who will then be motivated to pass it along. For example, lesbians and breast cancer – a niche audience with a highly targeted and often overlooked messages would be a great topic for this sort of video. Here is a good example of what I mean – Cynthia Nixon on breast cancer and lesbians from the Susan G. Komen Foundation:
All of these videos are now housed on the EyeonFDA YouTube channel, which lists videos for you in a range of playlists, including Oncology, Diabetes and HIV. Check it out.
