HSH704 Communications Strategy : Purpose of Organization

1.Develop a communications strategy to publicise a health seminar 
Topics can be selected from:
Alzheimer’s disease
Medical marijuana 
Using mindfulness to enhance health and wellbeing
The setting can be your choice. For example the seminar might be located in a community setting for the public or be conducted by a health organisation for professionals from across a region, or you might run an online webinar. 

2.Develop a communications strategy to raise awareness about an issue. 
Select from the following issues:
Alzheimer’s disease         
Medical marijuana 
Using mindfulness to enhance health and wellbeing
Feel free to focus the topic as you wish. Keep it general or focus in on an aspect of the topic. It’s up to you to decide. If unsure of what to do, email your Unit Chair/tutor to check on your ideas before proceeding. 

 

1.Develop a Communications Strategy    
Write a strategy that explains what you are trying to achieve. This is all about big picture thinking. What is your goal here? Are you trying encourage the development of more knowledge and understanding about issues through conducting seminars? Are you trying to advocate or lobby for a change in attitude or a cultural change in your organisation or region? Are you hoping to influence a change in policy or an injection of funds from politicians? Are you wanting to get people talking about a sensitive issue such as medical marijuana so that we as a community can have a more informed debate about appropriate interventions and uses? 

In your strategy you need to explain who the stakeholders are and how you will communicate with them. You should include a stakeholder analysis in your strategy. It is essential that you refer to the stakeholder analysis lecture found in Week 8 resources.

Explain what tools you will use and why? (e.g. 5 media releases in local paper over a 10 week period to keep the issue bubbling along; a survey monkey survey to gauge opinions; a blog; a simple 30 sec video to advertise an event; other). 

How will you measure your success? Develop a set of metrics to determine the impact of your communications strategy. (E.g. How many hits on the website? How many calls to register for the event? Other?). Think carefully about how you will measure the effectiveness of your communications strategy. This is important. Good strategies have clear impact measures. 

What are the risks? A good communications strategy will also consider the potential risks and will include a simple risk management plan. This will involve identifying potential risks to you and/or your organisation and appropriate mitigations and responses should the worst case happen. This typically can comprise a series of statements or can be presented in a simple grid or matrix stating the potential risk and what could be done to minimise and/or respond to it. Examples of risks for activities presented here include:
a)to reputation or image 
b)to finances 
c)to physical/mental health and wellbeing

s it important to create awareness to the community about marijuana as a medicine. The target population is adults between eighteen years to fifty years where the number of people expected to attend the community awareness program is seven hundred. Due to community lacking information on medical marijuana, diseases like chronic pains have suppressed them hence becoming a burden to them.

Objective of the communication strategy

This communication strategy targets on raising awareness about medical marijuana to the society. The communication strategy targets to eliminate the misconception and misunderstanding about marijuanaby the society. The positive benefits communicated can help the government to come up with a way of legalizing medical marijuana(Wong and Lin 2016).The main purpose is to pass information regarding the health benefits of marijuana and its medicinal value such that the people can make informed choices. This will aid in promoting positive health practices among the individuals involved.

Communication with stakeholders

The stakeholders involved in medical marijuana awareness includes the patient group, general public, the health professionals, media and the national government. Communication with stakeholders is important in ensuring that public health is protected.

• Communication with patient group can be done in an interpersonal manner. This is through counseling by the health care professionals to the patients. This enhances personal relationship between the counselor and the patient and offers immediate feedback.
• Communication with general public can be done through local radios, talks and seminars. This ensures that the objective of the communication is met and the language is clear with provision of good contact between the individuals involved.
• The communication among the health professionals can be done through seminars, workshops, and internal memos. This is convenient because the members are within the same environment.
• Government communication can be done via emails with intentions of getting information on regulation and any sensitive information.

The table below illustrates type of information relayed to the stakeholders during health communication strategy.

 Mass media- This has an impact of making wide exposure of the objective. A radio or a television advertisement can reach the audience in a short time frame(Basin and Owens 2017). Printed pamphlets containing information on medical benefits of marijuana is also an effective tool in health communication. Printing them in different languages can increase their relevance to the audience making them more effective.

• Community activities- This may include video shows, road shows, health fairs and drama performances to the target society. This creates entertainment and positive impact to the society.
• Community participation-They include group meetings and advocacy activities. This engages the community as a whole helping in changing their attitude (Rice and Atkins 2012).
• Interpersonal communication-This involves counseling and health clinic enhancements through posters or pamphlets. They enhance personal interactions between health providers and the clients.
• Internet sites-These are relevant to those stakeholders who can access internet. They include blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube videos, and organization websites. They increase the chances of information spreading to several stakeholders. Internet sites are also important in evaluating the impact of the communication strategy(Hogeveen and Lam 2012).
• Posters- this can be very effective in passing the intended message on health issue. The language used in posters should be simple to be understood by the society so that it can improve its effectiveness.

Communication metrics employed

Communication metrics play a key role in estimating the effectiveness of a communication strategy by considering the impact it makes to the community. To measure the success of communication strategy various methods can be used:

• Creation of questionnaires to be used to evaluate the impact of a communication strategy on medical marijuana. These questionnaires can be emailed to a sample of target audience. Evaluating their feedback helps in gauging the impact of the strategy.
• Web statistics are important in tracking the audience response. This is through monitoring the accessed files and the downloaded files in your website. If the number of people accessing the web information are many, it is interpreted that the communication strategy is effective(Collins 2009).
• An organization can create a toll-free number to track the success of communication strategy. By accessing the number of people making the calls to inquire or offer feedback, it tells how much aware the community is towards the upcoming event. You can ask a question related to the medical marijuana to the callers to gauge their level of understanding the content in the strategy.
• A survey can be done in the target community to evaluate awareness levels on medical marijuana. This also aids in getting insights on perception and attitudes of the audience toward marijuana as medicine by using survey becomes it easy to gauge the impact of your communication strategy (Collins2009).
• Downloading an interesting video on medical marijuana to you-tube channel can also be used in measuring the effectiveness of communication strategy. The link can be included in the website to increase number of views of that video.  By counting the number of views, likes, dislikes and comments on that video can assist in measuring the impact to the audience.
• Creation of an organization Facebook page can also be a tool in estimating the impact of a communication strategy. This is by considering the number of people liking the event and expressing their opinions.
• A blog can also serve the purpose of measuring the success of strategy.  This entails creating a blog with the health details to be publicized. Passing through the comments on your blog and the number of these comments carries information on the impact of the strategy.

Risk management plan

There are some potential risks that may result from health communication on medical marijuana. The communication strategy targets to address them and offer a possible solution towards them in case they arise. The potential risks involved include the following:

• The bad reputation of your organization may make people to dislike or distrust your message even before you deliver it. This may be as a result of misunderstanding of the organization making it a communication issue. The organization should respond appropriately to this in order to eliminate the false information or impression by the community. This can be done by availing the facts about the organization to the public to change their attitude.
• People may fail to understand your message on marijuana medicinal value or misunderstand it. This may be as a result of making assumption on some basic information or using a language that may not be clear to them. You should apologize for the misunderstanding and state the information again in a clearer manner. Testing whether the restated message has been understood is important. This can be done by engaging the audience to gauge their level of satisfaction
• Misinterpretation of the information by the media can also be potential risk. This should be corrected urgently by offering a press release or sending a letter to the editor offering the actual message. A different avenue of communication can be chosen if the media misinterpreted the message intentionally 

Risk management plan

Developing a communication plan

Communication plan has a purpose of illustrating the communication objective, the target stakeholders, and the strategies on creating awareness on medical marijuana. The communication plan must be flexible allowing it to change over time and also dynamic(Ruralhealth.und.edu 2017).

Implementation of communication pan involving medical marijuana requires engagement of various stakeholders and their commitment. 

Project information

 

Basic communications plan

Development of Facebook as the social media tool

Social media tool chosen for this communication is a Facebook page. This Facebook page indicates the description of the upcoming event on creating awareness to the society about medical marijuana. Various stakeholders are invited to like the page and express their opinions. Facebook has been considered since it is quicker and easier way to build a large members list who can freely participate. It is also possible to moderate what the members of the group write on the page by coming up with a control mechanism of the profile.  The activeness of members this group can be used to measure its success.Below is a  screenshot of a facebook page created as a campagn strategy to create awareness on medical marijuana.

Conclusion

Health communication on medical marijuana is important since it educates the society on health benefits associated with marijuana. The organization objective can be achieved easily by developing a good communication strategy and identifying the target audience. Establishing communication strategy requires stakeholders’ analysis. The effectiveness of communication is determined by the information to be communicated, the person to whom the message is being conveyed and the channel used in relaying the information. A good communication strategy should have a set of metrics to evaluate its impact and success. Developing a communication plan carrying information on the objective of communication, key messages and stakeholders among other components ensures that an effective communication is achieved. Coupling the traditional tools of communication with social media have a great impact in reaching out large target audience. Creating a Facebook page aids in publicizing the event hence aiding in achieving the goals and objectives of the organization 

References

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Collins, S. (2009). Effective communication. 1st ed. London: Jessica Kingsley. 

Ctb.ku.edu. (2017). Chapter 6. Communications to Promote Interest | Section 1. Developing a Plan for Communication | Main Section | Community Tool Box. [Online] Available at: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest/communication-plan/main [Accessed 17 May 2017].

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Rice, R.E. and Atkin, C.K. (2012). Public communication campaigns. Sage.

Ruralhealth.und.edu. (2017). Creating a Communication Plan - Center for Rural Health Communication Toolkit. [online] Available at: https://ruralhealth.und.edu/communication/plan [Accessed 17 May 2017]. 

Singhal, A. and Rogers, E. (2012). Entertainment-education: A communication strategy for social change. Routledge. 

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Wong, S. and Lin, H. (2016). Effects of Medical Marijuana Legalization of Marijuana Use among Adolescents and Adults in the United States. Value in Health, 19(7), pp.A527-A528.

Wright, K.B., Sparks, L. and O’Hair, H.D. (2012). Health communication in the 21st century. John Wiley & Sons.