“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media. The question is how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman
How well health agencies use Facebook to communicate health was the key objective of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control/Facebook Workshop. The event held on Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja.
Health agencies represented at the workshop included National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), FHI-360, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Nigeria Health Watch, EpidAlert and Nollywood Workshop.
Lisa Foster, Facebook’s Head of Policy Programs, Global Public Policy and Sherry Dzinoreva of Facebook’s Africa Public Policy Programs (Economic + Health Initiatives), facilitated the workshop. Both facilitators showed opportunities that exist using various features of Facebook in promoting health and communicating health interventions.
Lisa and Sherry mapped current use of Facebook tools in the Nigerian public health sector space; showcased Facebook tools that are relevant to healthcare; explored Facebook tools that can be used in the Nigerian public health sector space; discussed outcomes of use of Facebook tools to identify gaps for potential engagement/development. They shared new data on the proportion of Nigerians on Facebook. Currently, there are 18 million Nigerians who make use of Facebook monthly. Out of this figure, 8.7 million Nigerians use Facebook daily and at least 8.4 million of the daily figures use mobile devices to access Facebook.
There was a panel discussion that comprised of representatives of three organizations; Nigeria Health Watch, Nollywood Workshop and EpidAlert. The panel shared experiences of the use of Facebook to promote health. I represented Nigeria Health Watch and discussed how Facebook enables my organisation to increase our followership and helps us to make posts targeted at specific demographics to ensure our messages are effective.
Bond Emeruwa representing Nollywood Workshop talked about use of Nollywood celebrities to address misconceptions about Ebola on Facebook. Mamadu Ibrahim of EpidAlert discussed how his team utilized Facebook messenger and posts to counter misconceptions during the Ebola outbreak.
It was a great workshop and we all learnt new ways of using various Facebook features to improve the work that we do. There was a commitment to continue the conversation through future online training to be facilitated by Facebook.
Additional Facebook Resources
- Facebook Group-Global Health Hub: www.facebook.com/groups/globalhealthhub
- Free Basics: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internetorg/gettingstarted
- Manage your pages: http://business.fb.com
- Non-profit Success Stories: http://nonprofits.fb.com
- Privacy check-up: https://www.facebook.com/about/basics
- Facebook Help Center: www.facebook.com/help
- Blueprint (Online Training Modules): https://www.facebook.com/blueprint
About the author
Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is the CEO of EpiAfric, an Abuja-based public health consulting firm. He is the Health Communication Advisor at Nigeria Health Watch
