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Is it working?:Creating a Facebook audit tool to improve communication outcomes
How well is your Facebook presence performing? That is the burning question as more public health organizations and government agencies use Facebook to educate and interact with different audiences. Having a Facebook page is not enough. Public health practitioners must ensure that their Facebook page is intentional, appropriate, structured, and supported. This presentation will describe a method for auditing Facebook pages to ensure that current content, design, and strategy is having its intended impact. Results from the use of this tool on the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Smokefree Women website will be presented.
Methods:
The Facebook Audit is an evaluative research tool grounded in existent literature on social media strategy and best practices. It has been tailored to the structure of the Facebook platform itself, examining the different components of a Facebook page that an owner has control over (e.g., alignment with outreach goals, design, message type, framing). It includes competitive analysis of other organizations’ Facebook activity, compared with the Facebook page(s) being evaluated. For the analysis of the Smokefree Women page, a social media expert used the tool to examine a month’s worth of posts.
Results:
Results indicate that improvements could be implemented on the Smokefree Women Facebook page. Specifically, the page could post more frequently, be more intentional about building a support community, present visual content differently, and alter design elements of the page itself. The Facebook Audit enables organizations to evaluate their use of Facebook and redirect their efforts to the activities that are creating the desired outcomes.
Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadershipConduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education
Learning Objectives:
Formulate a framework to compare actual performance of a Facebook presence with the intended impact.
Define the traits to look for in a suitable competitive (or comparative) organization Facebook page that can properly inform your evaluation.
Differentiate between actionable findings, findings that need more investigation, and aberrations from external variables.
Keyword(s): Social Media, Evaluation
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the ICF project lead for the Smokefree project and have worked on Smokefree, as well as in tobacco control, for over a decade.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.