NPR: Government Uses Social Media To Spread Word On Flu

See CDC emergency alerts on Twitter

Government Looks Online To Spread Word On Flu : NPR 043009:

References to swine flu in the blogosphere are far surpassing the actual spread of the virus itself. As the government tries to get in front of the rapid spread of information, it’s learning some important lessons about how social media is used in crisis situations.

Within a few days of news of the flu outbreak, the term “swine flu” quickly became 10 times more popular on blogs and Twitter than references to the peanut butter-related salmonella problems earlier this year, according to Nielsen Online, which tracks online traffic. It’s already three times more popular than references to Britain’s instant TV singing sensation, Susan Boyle, whose YouTube clips have been viewed by many tens of millions of viewers.

“And it hasn’t ended. If anything I think the buzz levels are going up,” says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president for Nielsen Online’s digital strategic services. “Twitter has really incubated this real-time culture,” he says, particularly because followers of that social network can post short messages either from their computer or their cell phone. That kind of constant access promotes the faster spread of news, he says.

And that’s a kind of rapid outreach the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, are trying to harness. The CDC, for example, had a few thousand Twitter “followers” to its emergency-alert service. By Wednesday morning, it reached 40,000 subscribers.