Posts Tagged ‘h1n1 coverage’

The short answer is lots of people including corporate giants like Tyson Foods, health agencies, foreign governments, and pork industry lobbyists. In fact, the CDC, WHO and Smithfield Foods CEO want it to be called North American Influenza. Israel wants it to be called the Mexican Flu. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture wants it to be called H1N1. Brazil has said they would be ok with either North American Flu or Mexican Flu. There are at least 5 potential terms and plenty of jockeying for naming rights to this awful virus.

What is happening around this story is an interesting study of how social media has shifted control of information from traditional media outlets to the voice of the masses. It doesn’t matter what these organizations want, the conversation of the masses will dictate what this virus is called. The result is a PR nightmare for the pork industry.

Back in April of 2009, the corporate giants including Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, and Bob Evans successfully convinced the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to officially stop using the name Swine Flu and instead use H1N1. They argued that the name Swine Flu was unfairly hurting the pork industry. After some debate the official position in the U.S. Government was to intentionally change the discussion to begin calling the pandemic by the scientific name H1N1. So in all of the press briefings and news stories, we started hearing the official term H1N1 being used.

Click here to read the Washington Post article regarding the pork lobbyists attempts to fight the name.

In the old days when print newspapers and a handful of network news shows controlled the majority of information the public consumed, this official change in terminology might have worked and the pork industry would be happy as pigs in mud (sorry couldn’t avoid it).

However, we live in a new world where information cannot be controlled by a few media outlets. Now everyone with a computer and internet connection can be a publisher by simply sharing their opinion online via the wide range of social media outlets. The combined impact of social media is far greater than any traditional media outlet has ever been. The digital voice of the masses outweighs the voice of the professional media. Sounds like a true democracy.

At Biz360, we use our new Community Insights platform to measure social media conversation and help our clients engage in the conversation. We found some very interesting trends regarding what people are calling the H1N1/Swine Flu virus.

• Most people still think of it as Swine Flu… despite 5 months of concerted effort to move the conversation away from the term Swine Flu, in the past 7 days the term Swine Flu was used 26% more than the term H1N1 across social media blogs, forums, and micro-blogs.
• However, they are making slow progress… back in March of 2009, we found that Swine Flu was used 83% more than H1N1 so the agents of change are making some impact on the terminology.
• The other terms (Mexican Flu and North American Flu) are virtually non-existent except on the specialty sites like the CDC and WHO.
• This issue is not going away… in September there were more than 100,000 posts each week about Swine Flu/H1N1.

We found thousands of blogs and forums that are committed to talking about this virus. Some of the most common communities talking about this include mommy blogs and frequent traveler forums. If the pork lobbyists really want to change the conversation, they need to find the places where people are talking about this issue and help them understand why this virus isn’t about pigs.

So what is the lesson for companies considering a social media strategy? If you are a marketer who still feels you control your brand, this is a pretty good example that you no longer control your message. Your brand is what people say about you. You can’t simply push new messages out there (like the Dept. of Agriculture attempted to do) and expect a change in perception. Social media marketing requires engaging in the relevant conversations that impact your market. The best brands and companies have realized that if you commit to social media as a marketing channel, it can be the best way to promote your story since the invention of the printing press. 

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According to CNN, there are 900 documented cases of the H1N1 virus.  Let’s compare that to how much chatter there is about it on the web:

Our coverage indicated that in its lowest covered day, H1N1 received two and half times as many mentions as there have been total cases since its discovery.  However, there is danger if the strain mutates the same way the flu virus did in 1918. Do you think the amount of press is warranted given the danger, or is this a story being overblown by media outlets?