7 social media takeaways from the COVID-19 frontline

Never did I think that I’d be a part of a global pandemic response, let alone being on the frontline. The last two and a half years have certainly been a rollercoaster! I wish I had more time and brain power to document learnings and challenges in real time, but I will try to reflect back more often and share thoughts and takeaways that can be helpful for other social media managers, advisers, colleagues in public sector. Hence, I'm sharing my key takeaways from this invaluable experience: ?

1. Always be honest!

There's no better vaccine to misinformation and disinformation than honesty. We live in a digital era where information spreads fast, but often its accuracy changes even faster as knowledge and facts are evolving (especially when we are dealing with a new virus or a pathogen). Be brave to acknowledge what you still don't know or if you make a mistake. It may lead to some criticism - but that's nothing in comparison to distrust in your brand and reputation if you try hiding or avoiding the truth.

Your social media footprint can't be erased, so make sure your accounts are managed in a clear manner, navigating users to follow your latest updates. One way to avoid confusion is to date stamp your visuals. When you are correcting a post/tweet, make sure that the edit is clear and transparent.

2. Work with your leadership

In the public sector, usually the budget is very limited or sometimes even $0 to implement a social media strategy on various channels, so it’s even more important to work closely with your leadership. You need them to understand the value of social media presence, both as a listening and as a communications tool. If they understand its power and necessity, you’re more empowered to do your job effectively - not only in terms of financial resources, but collaboration within the organization and establishing external partnerships, including with social media platforms.

If possible, it’s also an advantage to have your leadership present on social media to add a human face and voice to your organization's image. If your leadership is considering building a presence on social media, the best way would be for them to use it themselves (with your support and advice) so that they understand first-hand how it works and how fast it changes. If your resources are limited, start with the platform that may be the easiest for your leader to use, or where your target audience is present the most.

With trust from our Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , we've helped him to launch and manage his LinkedIn profile. Within the first year he ended up on the top ten influencers list, and in the second year he was number one health voice on the platform.

3. Strengthen the team. It's all about teamwork.

Your team is small, while social media platforms and the internal demands to post everything on social media are both growing. The key solution to this is to embrace the diversity of skills in your team, and provide them with freedom to experiment with their strengths and passions in delivering social media content. Your team members are your creators. Trust them. Trust empowers and builds accountability, and accountability builds results and success.

Capacity building and skill sharing is very important. If you can't afford external trainings and conferences for your team members, you can organize skill sharing sessions with partners. Peer conversations and exchanges are helpful not only to gain new learnings, but also for brainstorming and expanding partnerships. It can also help in advocating for future investment in social media team strengthening - expanding the team, their skills, and support mechanisms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the trust of communities and people we serve is essential for public health interventions to work. It has also escalated the use of digital channels, especially social media, in every aspect of our lives. This is why we need public sector leaders to prioritise investment into developing a sustainable presence on social media, which requires time, effort and expertise.

4. Follow your followers' needs

Social media is 99% listening. Your posts won't go viral out of nowhere, but based on your followers' needs and how successfully you are at meeting them. This is why social media channels are your eyes and ears in the digital sphere, and your ability to leverage the opportunities, conversations and various features in a real time will define your growth and engagement.

Monitor your data and use it as a basis for your social media executive decisions and strategy. Deep understanding of these metrics and in particular their sentiment and context will help you meet your followers needs, address their concerns, and fight misinformation.

Since the pandemic started, we have been conducting a daily deep dive into comments and replies across World Health Organization social media channels and we produce a summary of key questions/concerns our followers have. This intelligence is informing the weekly #AskWHO sessions (among other products and decisions) in which our experts are taking time to directly respond to followers' questions. This has been one of the key products to clarify misunderstandings, share how science is evolving and has helped us to build trust.

5. Be out there & innovate

Platforms are constantly upgrading, and adapting or introducing new features - don't be shy to try them out as they appear - when the time and resources are available. Here is one prime example: audio features are growing and Clubhouse was a top trend at some point in 2020 and peaked in early 2021. It was a new platform offering a new format that needed time and effort to be explored. We were too overwhelmed to kick off another account from scratch. But, when Twitter Spaces was launched, we were one of the first public sector organizations to try it out. We kicked off a series of daily chats during World Immunization Week 2021 and it was way easier to do it on the platform where we already have a strong presence and following. Nowadays, we have way more listeners on Spaces chats than on live video content on Twitter.

6. Be timely

Experienced social media managers know that it's not a perfect visual that makes your information viral - but capturing a perfect moment. Check this example, credits to my colleague Sari Setiogi ??

However, being timely is not only about opportunistic moments. We live in an instant, digital era where people expect access to information and clear answers to their questions immediately. This is why when it comes to communicating about a new deadly virus, which causes fears that may result in spread of misinformation, it is essential that public health advice and information are published in a timely and clear manner. Here is an example of a simple tweet on the day when the COVID-19 outbreak was characterised as pandemic, when the main advice people wanted was how to protect themselves ??

7. Fight infodemic with all tools at your disposal

Social media is an amazing tool to reach millions of people quickly with lifesaving information but is has also been used to spread misinformation and disinformation. Hence, we must fight back, utilising all the tools we can possibly use to provide access to accurate, reliable, timely information to as many people as possible; embrace new partnerships with varying scale – from trusted voices in key communities to influencers that can reach a global scale. And most importantly, we must strengthen our own capacity and utilize the potential of our own networks, channels and resources.

This is why WHO has been working with social media and the tech industry to expand the scope of our reach using digital and social media channels to mitigate the spread of harmful misinformation that in some cases can even have deadly consequences.

WHO’s leadership has spoken on multiple occasions about the importance of engaging with communities with clear and transparent communication so as to build trust. But building trust takes time and can’t be done in the middle of a crisis. So let's start now!

Video clip from the WHO Media Briefing on COVID-19, 17 April 2020