Going Live with Facebook Live: Approaches for Increasing Reach and Improving Engagement

Background:  The National Eye Health Education Program (NEHEP) of the National Eye Institute (NEI), was developed to increase awareness of scientifically based health information that can be applied to preserving sight and preventing blindness. NEHEP activities are designed to promote the importance of early detection and timely treatment of eye disease using strategies that are culturally appropriate, health-literate, and evidence-based. Digital outreach strategies—via the NEHEP website and social media platforms—have been central to these efforts.

Program background:  The NEHEP Diabetic Eye Disease Education Program focuses on the eye problems that people with diabetes may face as a complication of the disease. To promote new treatments for diabetic eye disease, NEHEP and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) hosted a Facebook Live event titled “For Your Eyes Only: Let’s Talk Diabetes and Eye Heath.” This event took place on ADA’s national Facebook page on October 12, 2016. Facebook Live was selected as the outreach platform because ADA is a trusted source of diabetes information and has a large built-in social network of over 681,000 Facebook followers at the time. While most Facebook Live events are conducted using a mobile device, this event was held in a professional studio and was moderated by a seasoned broadcast journalist. The event used a question and answer format with two experts: a certified diabetes educator and a retina specialist. Similar to other Facebook Live events, both pre-planned questions and questions from the audience were addressed. For this event, NEHEP and ADA carried out multiple technical tests, developed moderator and speaker materials (e.g., questions, script, talking points), created promotional materials for the event, prepared the studio, managed on-site monitoring of the social conversation, and edited the video for use post-event. The “enhanced” approach to Facebook Live proved fruitful for both organizations as evidenced by the results.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The event was evaluated using data from Facebook’s native analytics platform, which provides a robust amount of data on the performance of both the Facebook Live post and Facebook Live video. There were 11,875 total views of the video, with 10,984 unique viewers. The reach of the Facebook Live post was 99,159 people and it garnered 884 reactions, 176 shares, and 184 comments. Results from a series of 11 short video clips created after the event are forthcoming and will also be presented.   

Conclusions:  Facebook Live is an effective way to communicate important health information in an engaging and novel fashion. The flexibility of the platform allows for both simple events using a handheld mobile device and more advanced events using more traditional TV production techniques and equipment. While it does require advance preparation to pull off a successful event, Facebook Live is a valuable tactic for health communicators.

Implications for research and/or practice: 

• Facebook Live provides a cost-effective and visually engaging method of communicating vital eye health information.
• The robust amount of data Facebook provides can help to shape future events and outreach strategies for health communicators.