The CDC & Twitter: Good Content is the Cure for the Swine Flu

Yes, Oprah mentioned Twitter in a show and now a million of her fans flooded the network, many of whom got confused or realized they didn’t have time to micro-blog and left, and now we have even more noise in the system. The upside to this sort of mainstream acceptance is the potential to cultivate a real messaging platform in which smart companies and agencies can leverage followers to spread the word on their behalf. Case in point: The CDC Emergency Twitter Stream.

It was a confluence of timing, urgency, and interest that saw the CDC’s followers rocket from 1,000 to 55,000 (and counting) in a matter of days. There was the attention from mass media influencers like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher combined with the rising hysteria surrounding the swine flu outbreak and the desire to find reliable information that led people to The CDC Emergency Stream. And some smarty at the CDC gets it and is feeding the right content to the followers. You can find links for emergency healthcare workers to access treatment info along with status reports from the agency on the spread of the disease. You can also find statements “correcting the record” related to how you catch and spread the swine flu, which is invaluable in a time of mild panic that is perpetuated by misinformation and the willful hyping from some media outlets.

The CDC still maintains their more traditional communication apparatus through press releases, media relations, websites, and emails, but have added to the channels one tool that is particularly hot right now. They identified a need for content and delivered through the appropriate channels. Kudos.