Dive Brief:
- Experts say that social media chatter about the ACA could negatively affect health plan enrollment this year.
- A study by NetBase Solutions, a social media analytics firm, has found that negative words such as "disaster," "hate," and "not want" were used 60% more often than positive words and terms such as "good," "love," and "great" when discussing the ACA on the social networks.
- Another analysis by Converseon found that last month, 41% of tweets mentioning the ACA or Obama care were negative, while only 18% of such treats were positive.
Dive Insight:
To date, the Obama administration has largely dismissed negative social media messages, arguing that such communication involves those will never support the law anyway. But I would argue that underestimating negative sentiments on the social networks is a dangerous mistake to make. Even if the naysayers never support the ACA, and therefore can be dismissed to some extent, their influence could have a significant effect on enrollment. This phenomenon is definitely one to take seriously.