Debunking Desire

Despite the fact that up to a third of women experience low sexual desire, most women never seek professional help for their difficulties and will instead turn to online resources. The #DebunkingDesire team sought to address this need for digitally-accessible, evidence-supported information on low sexual desire by creating a social media Knowledge Translation (KT) campaign of the same name. Co-led by a patient partner with lived experience, the #DebunkingDesire team was rounded out by research trainees, social media strategists, and communications experts. The singular goal of the campaign was to reach as many members of the public as possible through digital platforms to debunk sexual desire related myths.

The campaign was developed around a 90-second infographic video, also titled #DebunkingDesire, that was created in partnership with the digital design company UBC Studios as well as a patient advisory committee. Visual elements and information from the infographic video were used to create educational and engaging graphics that were posted regularly on our social media channels. To increase engagement with our campaign materials, the team developed a social media toolkit, true-or-false quiz, and a website to house all campaign information. The team also planned various social media events and worked with influencers to maximize campaign goals.

Over the 10 months of the campaign, we garnered over 300,000 social media impressions, appeared on 11 different podcasts that were listened to/downloaded 154,700 times, hosted and participated in 8 online events, and had website views by individuals in 110 different countries. One notable finding from our campaign was the significant impact of podcasts for disseminating campaign messages to our targeted audience. Our partnership with several key influencers whose audiences overlapped with our target audience increased our measured impressions from 49,106 to 72,784 on Instagram alone from just a few posts on their own pages. We would recommend others pursuing social media KT campaigns collaborate with patient partners and influencers, look into social media advertisements for driving reach, and consider podcasts as an effective way to disseminate campaign messages.

To read more about the campaign, you can click here for a summary or visit the #DebunkingDesire website at debunkingdesire.com