350 Communicating aquatic safety to national parks visitors in Queensland, Australia via social media: campaign co-design and pilot evaluation

<h3>Background</h3> Social media is a major driver of tourism to aquatic sites in national parks where increased tourist numbers and risky behaviours are leading to injuries and deaths. <h3>Objective</h3> This study co-designed a social media safety campaign with Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) to evaluate whether messages reach park visitors and impact behaviours at a known injury hotspot. <h3>Methods</h3> Social media posts describing risks in national parks locations popular with social media users were promoted on Instagram and Facebook between January and February 2024. Quantitative analysis of in-person survey data of visitors to Curtis Falls in Tamborine National Park was conducted, as well as analysis of campaign sentiment and metrics. <h3>Results</h3> The social media communication campaign was well received by social media users with a high number of engagements with the campaign content including four thousand link clicks, 100+ shares and 254 saves across the communication materials presented. Content analysis of comments on social media revealed that some respondents (20%) felt the tone of the organic content component of the communication campaign was patronising, while others (20%) were pleased to receive messages around safety in national parks. In-person surveys (n=50) showed that 78% of respondents use social media to find places to visit in nature, 74% often or occasionally rely on social media for information or inspiration about their national parks visit with 39% relying on national parks content on social media pages. A third (32%) recalled (prompted) at least one of the communication materials from Instagram. Almost half (48%) considered QPWS safety communications somewhat or very effective on social media. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Results suggest that social media may be a useful way to encourage safer behaviours around aquatic hazards in National Parks among social media users. We recommend communicating with social media users more frequently with messages that have been co-designed with end-users. Influencers may also represent a useful avenue to pursue but further research is needed to find the most effective communication strategy.