We now have a Twitter page, so hurry and follow us!!! We have already been retweeted by Sarcoma Foundation and one of our followers is currently suffering from sarcoma cancer.
This is the link to our twitter page:
https://twitter.com/#!/SarcomaAwarenes
Sarcoma Awareness
A team of university students tasked with promoting awareness and early diagnosis of Soft Tissue Sarcomas via social media platforms.
Monday, 6 February 2012
Very inspiring story
A sarcoma patient survives the cancer and now writes music about his experience. Check this video out
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=8525333
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=8525333
Friday, 3 February 2012
Would you risk it for a biscuit?
This biscuit?
How about this one?
And what about this?
How big would it have to get before you thought something wasn't right?
Don't let it get on top of you.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
First discussion with our expert, Tom Beckingsale
Our first meeting with Tom provided us with a lot of the more specific medical detail that we required, this reliably answered questions which we had previously found a lot of conflicting information on.
Tom's first piece of advice to us was to start at the beginning with our target market, something we had already considered and were able to discuss further. We confirmed that our main target market was ages 30-70, with the peak age being 55. He agreed with our previous assumption (backed up by research into Facebook user data) that Facebook was not the correct social platform with which to reach the audience in question. We considered that due to low levels of 'internet-savy' individuals in our target audience, they may need directing straight to any internet based information by use of tangible signposting with which they are more familiar.
Secondly we considered that part of our task was to raise awareness amongst primary care professionals, and Tom was able to offer excellent input as to which platforms would provide us with the best audience. Suggestions in this area included:
- Speciality Mailing Lists - Many health care professionals subscribe to information feeds sent out by medical institutions, therefore there could be benefit contained in approaching medical schools and requesting that they promote sarcoma awareness within related feeds. This provides direct access to the mailbox of healthcare professionals, also they would be less likely to view the information as advertising or junk mail as it is something that they have personally subscribed to, and are likely to read.
-Direct contact - We discussed a previous Sarcoma awareness project which had sent golf balls directly to GPs in order to encourage them to look more more sceptically at patients presenting 'lumps'. The project urged GPs to consider lumps while they are still of a smaller size, as removal at this point is a lot less disabling to a patient. Tom also mentioned that the larger a lump became, the faster it was spreading, meaning early diagnosis is especially prevalent.
The discussion then moved towards the average size at the time of diagnosis, although the general rule amongst GPs is to refer a lump over the size of 5cms (in order to maintain balance between early diagnosis and time wasting in a time/resource limited NHS) the average size of a lump at diagnosis was 50% bigger than a tin of baked beans. By the time the lump is at the size of a tin of beans it is already well developed, and therefore more likely to spread, with Sarcomas having a tendency to spread to the lungs.
One of the main issues with raising awareness is the many different types of sarcoma, of which there are around 100. Sarcomas also have varying 'grades' in different patients and can be slow growing or fast and malignant, making it difficult to provide precise definitions for this rare and extremely diverse type of tumour. Another factor effecting referral rates is that lumps are relatively common amongst the target age group, and roughly 99/100 times they turn out to be benign. The issue seems to lie with convincing people that it really is better to be safe than sorry, in an area where they seem to have fairly good odds.
Moving on to the number of people who are affected by this disease, there are around 1500 cases diagnosed per year. This looks like rather a small number when compared to more common cancers, however with a survival rate of 60% and early diagnosis being so key to improving the survival rate, increased awareness would go a long way to saving many lives. It is also worth mentioning that 'survival' figures include anyone who has lived 5 years after their diagnosis, and does not mean complete long term recovery.
All of the above points considered, we came to the conclusion that our main point to be made centred around the progressive size increase of suspicious lumps, and at what point people would start to be concerned. We decided that the best way of conveying size to our target audience was to use everyday items that people could relate to (such as the golf ball or the tin of beans), placed in everyday situations, which people could see them selves in. A common delay in diagnosis of sarcomas is that they are mistaken for sporting injuries, therefore one of the relatable scenarios we portray is likely to be sports based. Current ideas for slogans follow along the lines of; 'When would you start to worry', 'Would you risk it', and 'Do you fancy your chances?'. All of these fit well with the potential sports scenario that has been previously discussed. They play on the gambling/chance element, and could possibly lead to the inclusion of a 'betting shop' scenario in the video footage we create.
Tom's first piece of advice to us was to start at the beginning with our target market, something we had already considered and were able to discuss further. We confirmed that our main target market was ages 30-70, with the peak age being 55. He agreed with our previous assumption (backed up by research into Facebook user data) that Facebook was not the correct social platform with which to reach the audience in question. We considered that due to low levels of 'internet-savy' individuals in our target audience, they may need directing straight to any internet based information by use of tangible signposting with which they are more familiar.
Secondly we considered that part of our task was to raise awareness amongst primary care professionals, and Tom was able to offer excellent input as to which platforms would provide us with the best audience. Suggestions in this area included:
- Speciality Mailing Lists - Many health care professionals subscribe to information feeds sent out by medical institutions, therefore there could be benefit contained in approaching medical schools and requesting that they promote sarcoma awareness within related feeds. This provides direct access to the mailbox of healthcare professionals, also they would be less likely to view the information as advertising or junk mail as it is something that they have personally subscribed to, and are likely to read.
-Direct contact - We discussed a previous Sarcoma awareness project which had sent golf balls directly to GPs in order to encourage them to look more more sceptically at patients presenting 'lumps'. The project urged GPs to consider lumps while they are still of a smaller size, as removal at this point is a lot less disabling to a patient. Tom also mentioned that the larger a lump became, the faster it was spreading, meaning early diagnosis is especially prevalent.
The discussion then moved towards the average size at the time of diagnosis, although the general rule amongst GPs is to refer a lump over the size of 5cms (in order to maintain balance between early diagnosis and time wasting in a time/resource limited NHS) the average size of a lump at diagnosis was 50% bigger than a tin of baked beans. By the time the lump is at the size of a tin of beans it is already well developed, and therefore more likely to spread, with Sarcomas having a tendency to spread to the lungs.
One of the main issues with raising awareness is the many different types of sarcoma, of which there are around 100. Sarcomas also have varying 'grades' in different patients and can be slow growing or fast and malignant, making it difficult to provide precise definitions for this rare and extremely diverse type of tumour. Another factor effecting referral rates is that lumps are relatively common amongst the target age group, and roughly 99/100 times they turn out to be benign. The issue seems to lie with convincing people that it really is better to be safe than sorry, in an area where they seem to have fairly good odds.
Moving on to the number of people who are affected by this disease, there are around 1500 cases diagnosed per year. This looks like rather a small number when compared to more common cancers, however with a survival rate of 60% and early diagnosis being so key to improving the survival rate, increased awareness would go a long way to saving many lives. It is also worth mentioning that 'survival' figures include anyone who has lived 5 years after their diagnosis, and does not mean complete long term recovery.
All of the above points considered, we came to the conclusion that our main point to be made centred around the progressive size increase of suspicious lumps, and at what point people would start to be concerned. We decided that the best way of conveying size to our target audience was to use everyday items that people could relate to (such as the golf ball or the tin of beans), placed in everyday situations, which people could see them selves in. A common delay in diagnosis of sarcomas is that they are mistaken for sporting injuries, therefore one of the relatable scenarios we portray is likely to be sports based. Current ideas for slogans follow along the lines of; 'When would you start to worry', 'Would you risk it', and 'Do you fancy your chances?'. All of these fit well with the potential sports scenario that has been previously discussed. They play on the gambling/chance element, and could possibly lead to the inclusion of a 'betting shop' scenario in the video footage we create.
Monday, 2 January 2012
After all our brainstorming, we decided to do our own research on how to target the web sites that we had in mind.
Friends Reunited, owns two other websites called Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited Dating. It is a good idea to contact them since they would advertise the cancer in all of their web sites. They also send newsletters and tweet, a very good way to "promote" and get the message around.
Linked In has a forum on Sarcoma, although it is closed to the public. It would be helpful and easier for people to read and chat on the forum if it was open to the public, so creating a new forum would be a great idea!
Facebook. There are lots of private groups about soft tissue sarcomas aswell as a non-profit group made by the charity Sarcoma UK. This last group only has 302 members which means that not many people know about it, and there are no posts on it since May 2011, so people forget about it. We need to make a group/page ASAP!!
Sarcoma UK has a twitter account with only 518 followers which is not enough, this means that people are not conscious about this cancer. What can we do about this??
In Boots you can subscribe to their newsletter, so it would be a good idea to try and get some info about Sarcomas on their. WebMD is a symptom checker and the partner to Boots; I tried putting in the symptoms for Sarcoma and nothing appeared. Also, when you go on WebMD's website and click on cancers, this cancer doesn't come up, making people less conscious about the existence of it.
** Also doing more research on Soft Tissue Sarcoma it appears that 6/10 people that have this cancer have HIV aswell - becoming AIDS when you have Sarcomas. What can we do about this? Maybe something on "How to stay healthy with HIV"?
Friends Reunited, owns two other websites called Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited Dating. It is a good idea to contact them since they would advertise the cancer in all of their web sites. They also send newsletters and tweet, a very good way to "promote" and get the message around.
Linked In has a forum on Sarcoma, although it is closed to the public. It would be helpful and easier for people to read and chat on the forum if it was open to the public, so creating a new forum would be a great idea!
Facebook. There are lots of private groups about soft tissue sarcomas aswell as a non-profit group made by the charity Sarcoma UK. This last group only has 302 members which means that not many people know about it, and there are no posts on it since May 2011, so people forget about it. We need to make a group/page ASAP!!
Sarcoma UK has a twitter account with only 518 followers which is not enough, this means that people are not conscious about this cancer. What can we do about this??
In Boots you can subscribe to their newsletter, so it would be a good idea to try and get some info about Sarcomas on their. WebMD is a symptom checker and the partner to Boots; I tried putting in the symptoms for Sarcoma and nothing appeared. Also, when you go on WebMD's website and click on cancers, this cancer doesn't come up, making people less conscious about the existence of it.
** Also doing more research on Soft Tissue Sarcoma it appears that 6/10 people that have this cancer have HIV aswell - becoming AIDS when you have Sarcomas. What can we do about this? Maybe something on "How to stay healthy with HIV"?
Brainstorming Ideas
During our first meeting with the squad we brainstormed different ideas on how to make people more conscious about Sarcomas, and what websites do our target audience go on. Here is a list of places we have in mind targeting:
Friends Reunited
Dating sites
Online forums (adult health, professional, sports,)
Youtube
Symptom checkers (Boots)
Sarcoma UK
Ancestory.com
Making a group on Facebook
Linked in
Finding out about people's homepages to post something on them
Friends Reunited
Dating sites
Online forums (adult health, professional, sports,)
Youtube
Symptom checkers (Boots)
Sarcoma UK
Ancestory.com
Making a group on Facebook
Linked in
Finding out about people's homepages to post something on them
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
23 NOvember
Meeting today in the Robinson Library with the whole of the Sarcoma Squad. Brainstorming ideas on Social Media methods and various websites we wish to use to target the right audience.
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