If you own a business, regardless of the size, getting involved with public awareness campaigns are a win-win. The first step in participating is to have a cause you can get behind. As a caring human being as well as a good business owner, you owe it to your clients to inform.
Let’s take the COVID vaccine. Some people refuse to get vaccinated because of either something they’ve heard or they feel that it hasn’t been tested long enough and don’t feel safe getting vaccinated. So, as part of serving your community, you do your best to create a public awareness campaign.
First, educate yourself so that you can make your public awareness campaigns effective. For example, to help abate nervousness about the short clinical trials that the COVID vaccine had, educate yourself about the history of the polio vaccine.
Then, use the power of social media to get the word out about your campaign or cause. This not only brings awareness to a very important issue we’re dealing with today, but also aligns your company with something worthwhile and keeps you top of mind with your audience and potential clients.
Let’s go back to the history of polio. Infantile Paralysis, as it was referred to, had a grassroots beginning, and the luxury of years and years of test trials wasn’t about to happen. People were desperate and the paralysis (polio) wasn’t just centered around kids — adults were a target too. An effective vaccination campaign eradicated polio from the United States in 1979, but not from the world. So it is imperative to vaccinate your child.
Through COVID-19, we lost millions of people. The vaccine gives us hope and that same vaccine has saved and will save billions of other lives. Putting something like this in your public awareness campaign would get people listening.
We are pioneers, and as pioneers we must lead by example. Smallpox, back in 1796, ravaged both Europe and the United States. Smallpox had a 30% mortality rate, and if you were to survive it, you’d be scarred for life. Edward Jenner noticed those who were spared were developing immunity because they were associating with cows in farms. Cows carry cowpox, which is similar to smallpox but not as life-threatening. Thus Jenner created the same basic technique used in the current Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the mRNA.
Fast forward to today, this means that mRNA vaccines teach our cells to make an entire protein, or even by just having a portion of that protein triggering an immune response, it will mimic the herd immunity found at the farm back in 1796. Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use this technique, and it is extremely effective.
A side note: smallpox was eradicated from the world in 1980.
The bottom line? Public awareness campaigns are a must, they are important and it is a great way to use your platform as a business to be part of the solution. We’ll also take this time to advocate getting vaccinated for COVID-19. Think of getting vaccinated as an American tradition for survival. After all, it has been proven that vaccines work!