National Alliance of Mental Illness Free App
Patient Group Uses App As Reward For Action – National Alliance of Mental Illness
The US patient group, National Alliance of Mental Illness, launched a free app to attract and reward people for support for their ongoing campaign against mental health stigma.
The patient group used the offer of the app to:
- Encourage people visit their campaign website
- Complete a simple, quick, self-assessment quiz on stigma
- Commit to a promise to `cure stigma’
- Highlight actions the individual can take to combat stigma and support the patient group.
Attracting visitors through an app reward
We have written a lot in these blogs about ways patient groups publicise apps through their sites. So it’s good to look at this the other way round – where groups use apps as a reward for people visiting their sites.
The US patient group, the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) worked with developers Mango Concept on a simple, but highly attractive app idea. We’re all well used to using emojis in messages, but few emojis are good at expressing more sophisticated or uncomfortable feelings associated with a range of mental health issues.
The app created by the patient group, Sentimoji, offers a `sticker set’ of specialised emojis to help break down isolation and stigma in mental health, for example emojis that express:
- distress, such as feeling alone, overwhelmed, depressed, or having a really bad time
- commitment to help and support, such as talking, listening, caring and loving.
Gaining commitment to action
Once you complete the stigma self-assessment quiz to download the app, the site presents you with a set of possible actions to support the patient group, for example:
- take part in walks for the charity
- fundraise and donate
- share patient stories and experiences.
Building a social media promise
Also, users are encouraged to sign-up to the promise at the heart of the anti-stigma campaign, and publicise their commitment via Facebook and Twitter:
“I promise to continue to be an ally to people with mental health conditions. Together we can #CureStigma” – Cure Stigma Promise, US National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI)
Joining it all together
It takes a lot of co-ordination for a patient group to join-up all the elements of a digital and social media strategy.
For example, as well as creating the app, NAMI has set up a dedicated:
- CureStigma campaign website as a channel to publicise and download the app
- Twitter account which houses their anti-stigma campaign materials, including a powerful video.
The campaign is also promoted across the main NAMI site, and its Facebook and Instagram channels.
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