Get Waivered Remote: Use of Social Media Platforms to Promote Virtual DEA-X Waiver Course Enrollment (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Social media use by the public is at an all-time high and provides a convenient method of reaching broad audiences for public health agendas. Despite this, quantifying the impact of social media on health campaigns has proven to be a challenge, largely due to a lack of consistency in the metrics used, which can be unclear and variably effective. GetWaivered.com (GW) delivers and hosts free nationwide, remote DEA-X waiver training courses that enable clinicians to obtain their DEA-X so that they are able to prescribe Buprenorphine and effectively treat Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Evaluating Get Waivered social media engagement can be key to increasing awareness of our course. OBJECTIVE This paper aims to evaluate the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress for raising awareness of obtaining a DEA-X Waiver by determining the reach and engagement of the social media program. METHODS The intended target of the social media postings were clinicians who were eligible to prescribe buprenorphine. For our preliminary evaluation, we analyzed Facebook ads, Twitter, and Google Analytics data to measure engagement with our course advertisements. Twitter data such as impressions, engagements, engagement rate, and interactions (tweets, retweets, replies, likes) was assessed using exported excel data from Twitter Analytics and analyzed on Microsoft Word Excel. Facebook Ads reach, engagement, reactions, comments, shares, post clicks, cost, and cost per post engagement/event response/link click were assessed with Python using data from the Facebook platform. Google analytics data from the Google Analytics platform was used to analyze engagement metrics for the Get Waivered website. RESULTS Twitter posts generated a total of 16,643 impressions and 291 engagements. Facebook Ads generated a total of 36,008 reach, 6,173 engagement, and 321 clicks. Google Analytics showed that the WordPress blog (Get Waivered website) had a 477.80% increase in total users, a 475.10% increase in new users, 390.61% increase in sessions, and a 219.59% increase in page views between comparison periods. CONCLUSIONS This evaluation shows that social media posting does garner engagement while being more convenient than traditional forms of advertising. Since methods for analyzing social media use in public health is varied, these preliminary findings set a basis for developing social media posting structure and evaluation for future projects. The use of Twitter analytics and Facebook Ad insights allows GW to track which posts have large engagements and how to better interact with Twitter and Facebook users. This evaluation provides preliminary data and a framework as a baseline for planned future studies.