STI Awareness Week Toolkit: Step 2 – Plan Your Activities

Introduction

The following ideas illustrate unique opportunities to reach consumers, healthcare providers, and organizations in your community. Remember your STI Awareness Week activities should ultimately support your organization's goals. HIV.gov also has a helpful planning guide to help you plan for events, activities, and outreach. You can visit the STI general resource page for links to fact sheets, infographics, and more sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention resources.

Identify Your Audience and Primary Goal

Before deciding which activities to implement, be sure to identify who you're aiming to reach and your primary goal. Audience and goal examples include promoting testing among young people or educating healthcare providers about using CDC's STI Treatment Guidelines. Once you identify your audience and goal, explore the activities below to help with your planning. While developing messages and activities, consider ways to incorporate these Health Equity Guiding Principles.

Identify Your Activities

Digital Campaigns

Digital campaigns are helpful if your goal is related to awareness and education. There are many mediums (e.g., social media platforms, website, local media outlets) available to help you expand your reach to a broader audience. The CDC STI campaign that you select can supplement your planned digital activities, or it can be your primary activity.

If you are using a CDC campaign as your primary activity, visit the sample social media pages for GYT, Prepare Before You're There, and Talk. Test. Treat. to identify ready-to-use messages and graphics that best align with your audience and goals. Spanish-language resources are also available for some campaigns.

If you are looking for additional planning guidance, each campaign includes suggestions for daily themes focusing on different campaign-related topics that can be used throughout the week. There also is the option to pull elements from multiple campaigns and create a unique plan of action or to supplement your current plans, according to your intended audience and goals.

Tips to Consider

• Tailor the campaign content.
  • Insert local data where applicable
  • Customize the sample social media messages with information about local activities
  • Make the campaign relevant to your audience
• Do not forget your call to action. For example, if you are sharing testing information, connect people to a local testing center or CDC's GetTested website.
• Follow best practices with your social media messages.
  • Check the messages' character counts to make sure they are not too long for your selected platforms.
  • Shorten links to web pages if you include a link for more information.
  • Attach graphics, GIFs, and videos—content with visuals consistently performs better.
  • Use the hashtag #STIWeek to join the conversation and help amplify prevention messages during STI Awareness Week.
  • Think "Mobile First." When creating content for social media, remember the phrase "Mobile First"! Most social media users access content using a smartphone.
• Use different digital platforms. Explore and use the features available on different digital platforms for creative ways to share campaign materials. Examples include:
  • Creating stories (e.g., on Facebook or Instagram) and using filters and stickers to engage users and provide more information
  • Broadcasting live videos (e.g., on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn)
  • Hosting or joining twitter chats
  • Adding posts on partner websites
  • Sending email newsletters
• Amplify your messages through outreach. Spread the word about STI prevention to groups, such as your partners, local decision makers, or the general public.

Campaign Testing

When thinking about what testing options and activities are right for your organization, it is essential to develop a project plan. Make sure your project plan includes:

• Goals
• Roles and responsibilities
• Ways to measure success

If you are taking the lead on implementing a new testing strategy or activity, reach out to local organizations you can collaborate with for a more significant impact. You also may find that other organizations may already be planning similar activities. If so, consider joining forces or sharing plans for a coordinated effort.

Tips to Consider

• Engage your community. When it comes to STI prevention, we rely on many traditional and nontraditional partners (e.g., community organizations, healthcare providers, and businesses) to help achieve goals. Examine your network to determine whom to involve if you offer different options for STI testing and in what capacity.
• Promote your STI testing options! Adapt campaign graphics to create promotional materials like posters to advertise how you are providing STI testing services in your area (e.g., phone, online, or in person) that serve your intended audience. The Talk.Test.Treat. campaign has a collection of materials you can use to help support these efforts.
• Educate people when they test. CDC's fact sheets can help. Be sure to explore the campaign websites for links to other resources as well.
• Link people to care. If a person tests positive for an STI, make sure you have procedures in place to ensure they are made aware of their treatment options and next steps.

Community Events

Whether it is a town hall, 5K run/walk, or trivia event, a virtual or in-person community event provides a unique opportunity to connect with many people for an extended amount of time. If you are not hosting an event, consider attending, promoting, or supporting partner events as a way to help spread your STI Awareness Week messages.

Tips to Consider

• Tailor campaign content to meet your needs. You can combine sample messages from the campaigns with information about your event in promotional messages.
• Promote valuable resources. Community event settings, where people can converse and engage with each other, would be an ideal place to share useful resources featured in this toolkit. There will be representation from numerous health professionals and organizations that may not be able to implement the campaigns but could benefit from other general resources.

Closing

Remember, these are just some of the different activities you can do. You can focus on one or many activities depending on your capacity and goals. Since activities tend to overlap, the tips from each section can be helpful no matter what you decide to do.