Story Telling Through Video Creates Awareness
The American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT), an AH client partner, worked with the AH digital media team to create awareness videos that they could promote during their annual Hand Therapy Week. The idea for these videos came from the success they experienced the previous year with a similar campaign.
Hand Therapy Week is an integrated program during which ASHT members and therapists across the world seek to raise awareness among various audiences, celebrate the benefits of hand therapy and educate the public. Hand Therapy Week is held annually during the first full week of June.
Given how successful the use of video was in demonstrating the value of hand therapy in prior years, ASHT’s Technology & Communication Committee was eager to begin another video project — a series of videos on hand safety and injury prevention. It was determined the first of these videos would be released at the start of Hand Therapy Week.
The first video was focused on gardening safety, so it was relevant from a seasonal perspective, keeping in mind that Hand Therapy Week is also the most popular time for social media channels, and the videos would reach a large audience based on the 2017 results. This video was by far the most popular post on ASHT’s social media throughout Hand Therapy Week.
The video post on Facebook was shared 165 times – more than any other post in the history of the page. This equated to a reach of nearly 15K, which is about 2K more than the total reach of all three hand therapy awareness videos last year combined!
The focus of the previous year's campaign was a series of video “vignettes,” highlighting three real hand therapy patient success stories. The videos were created to raise awareness of the spectrum of conditions and injuries a hand therapist treats, and to provide therapists with a powerful tool to promote the specialty among the healthcare community and the public/patient population.
The video vignettes were released individually throughout Hand Therapy Week, and teased using social media advertisements that featured video stills and clever hooks to generate buzz.
Activity on the ASHT Facebook page surged during Hand Therapy Week. The video vignettes were among the most popular posts on ASHT social media throughout Hand Therapy Week, reaching a total of about 13,000 people through ASHT’s direct posts and shares from followers.
This was ASHT’s first project involving the digital media team in the Red Chair Communications dept., and feedback from volunteer leaders and the public was very positive.
This set the tone for the decision to work with the digital media team again and offer videos via social media that not only appealed to ASHT members, but allowed them to share with consumers on their own personal pages, creating awareness for the profession.
