Meanwhile, researchers are rushing to study how effective the available vaccines will be against a new variant of the virus.
Amid all this, Granicus, a communications software provider for state and local government, is rolling out several free tools to help the public sector talk to the public about vaccines.
That includes tools for placing overlays on websites, for advertising and for text-to-subscribe campaigns, as well as analytics to determine effectiveness.
But there’s also a big focus on helping governments share effective strategies with each other. That includes highlighting best practices from participating jurisdictions as well as AI tools for streamlining the creation of new content.
Communication has been an area of concern for government during the pandemic, from making sure people know what the most recent business restrictions are to correcting misinformation floating around social media. One company, AlphaVu, has worked on tools to identify COVID-related misinformation online to help government quickly address it.
Granicus’ work builds on that, with an emphasis on vaccination.
“This will start and end with clear, transparent and consistent communication about the vaccines with our community. We are in a fundamental battle with social media-driven misinformation, with dire consequences,” said Mathieu Cavell, a spokesperson for Leon County, Fla., in a Granicus press release. “Granicus has been a long-time partner in helping us communicate and engage directly with citizens in the modern, digital channels in which they live. Access to the Vaccine Communications Toolkit will allow us to broadly reach residents in our community with proven communications and messaging, responsive to a dynamic environment, that we are confident will help us get to the other side of this virus with widescale immunity.”
