Targeted dissemination involves communicating information to a tailored and identified audience. In our case, this will most commonly be about finding the right audience for a specific Review topic. This guide will help you with your dissemination strategy and includes information about possible channels and media contacts.
If you need more help or an answer to a specific media or press question, please contact pressoffice@cochrane.org.
Pre-dissemination checklist
Considering these aspects when you plan to disseminate a specific Review or topic will help you decide which channels are the most suitable for the Review or topic that you want to disseminate:
- What does this Review tell us?
- What question does it answer?
- What’s the strength of the evidence?
- How clear are the outcomes?
- How does it change behaviour/patient care?
- How does it inform practice or research?
- What are the implications for research/practice?
- Who do you want to reach? Academics, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, the general public?
- Is it newsworthy?
- Is it of particular relevance to your country or region?
- Is it a public health topic?
- Is it a topic of global importance/clinical importance?
Mailing lists
You can add a section to your country website with a space for people to join your mailing list.
Connecting with key influencers on X (formerly Twitter)
If X (formerly Twitter) is well established as a news source in your country or region, it is a great place to reach out to relevant journalists, organisations and publications that would be interested in the topic of the press release.
Other social media channels
Make sure you’re aware of the most effective social media channels for your country and target audience and build this into your strategy. If you’re new to using social media to promote your translation work, experiment with different channels and see which are most successful. Please see here for more social media guidance: https://training.cochrane.org/online-learning/knowledge-translation/how-share-cochrane-evidence/choose-right-dissemination-produ-9
Disseminating to media contacts
It is usually more effective if you contact a health or science editor directly, rather than a general news desk email. We have access to a global media contacts database as part of our media monitoring service and can send you a list of contact details for journalists who are based in your country/region. We can search the database for media contacts working in health/science, as well as searching for specific topics. You can use this list of contacts to send relevant content – press releases, plain language summaries, podcasts, etc to contacts who have a specific interest in the topic and are more likely to be interested in it. If this is something you are interested in, please email pressoffice@cochrane.org to receive a spreadsheet of contacts.
Presenting a story when the evidence is low quality or the Plain Language Summary is not well-written
You can contact the Review authors who will be able to tell you the key messages from the Review. If the authors do not respond, please contact support@cochrane.org, who will be able to assist.