As the internet grows from novelty to vital infrastructure, governments around the world are gradually using more creative ways to harness it, to reach their citizens. We’ll be looking at two case studies to examine this in depth, one from Ireland and one from the US. This article focuses on the HSE’s use of Bebo, to highlight mental health issues. The next article looks at how Barack Obama is reshaping the US government online presence, using all the techniques he discovered while on the campaign trail.
In October 2007, the HSE began to use Bebo as a part of a campaign to promote mental health. The “Your Mental Health” campaign was promoted on TV, radio and in cinema trailers. The purpose of the Bebo page is to reach young people, give them information about mental health, get feedback about the campaign, and to generate debate and conversation about mental health among Bebo users. Overall, it seems to have been quite successful, particularly while the advertisements were being broadcast.
Features Used
Your Mental Health uses lots of interactive elements to entice audience participation, including video, polls, quizzes and slideshows, blog posts, and the whiteboard, an application which allows visitors to draw a picture, rather than leaving a written comment.
There are three videos on the page, and each of these is a television advertisement promoting mental health, neatly connecting the Bebo page with the television campaign. There are forty polls available, with new ones being added at regular intervals. There are seven quizzes, with topics covering such issues as self-harm, peer pressure and stress. There are also three slide shows: one lists the symptoms of depression, one suggests mental health tips, and another has information about bi-polar disorder.
Interactions Gained
One of the ways we can measure the success of the Your Mental Health campaign is to look at how much interaction it inspired. There are many different kinds of interactions supported by Bebo, such as other users “friending” the page, commenting on topics started by Your Mental Health, and replying to and debating with each other.
Your Mental Health has been “friended” by over 1,300 Bebo users. The polls attracted a lot of votes and comments, particularly compared to the blog posts. The polls are bite-sized and encourage participation, whereas the blog posts are longer, more informative, and designed to provide information rather than to cause debate and secure feedback.
The quizzes generate even more interest than the polls, which is surprising because they are longer and more involved. A poll asks only one question, while quizzes tend to ask between 5 and 10 questions, and so require more time and energy. One quiz has had over four thousand takers.
The site has also inspired twenty-six whiteboard drawings by Bebo users. A whiteboard is a very different kind of encounter than a blog comment. Instead of being a response to something specific, a whiteboard is an interaction where the first move is made by the visitor. It also can be a larger emotional and time commitment than just typing; it takes longer to communicate something by drawing. The visitor sets the agenda when communicating by whiteboard.
A selection of whiteboards from the Mental Health Bebo page
Messages Sent Out, Messages Received
There are several different kinds of messages passed by the Your Mental Health campaign:
- Information the campaign seeks to send out
- Information they want to receive
- Interactions the campaign aims to promote between visitors
The blog posts give detailed information about mental health, what it is and how to maintain it, and where to turn to for help. The slideshows are also designed to educate, but in a more graphical format, with easy to absorb tips. There are links to yourmentalhealth.ie, which has more substantial articles and resources for those who need to know more.
Another key motivation for the campaign was to receive feedback and information from the target audience. There are several areas where visitors are asked to give feed back on the current campaign so that it can be tailored specifically to young people next time around, making it more effective in general.
The site encourages visitors to think about their behaviour and actions, to take quizzes and polls to compare their attitudes and knowledge with others, and to discuss mental health issues. Mental health problems can become worse if the sufferer feels isolated; this site allows people to know that they are not alone.
How to Win at Social Media
Lately it seems like everyone wants to know the secret of harnessing social media for their own devious purposes: push that blog, talk up that product, make everybody a friend of your brand. But social media is not about connecting companies with customers; people want to engage with other people. Dumping a brand into a social media profile, is not going to work, because it’s too much like a one sided conversation. The Your Mental Health campaign works on Bebo because it’s not just broadcasting a message, it’s also genuinely requesting feedback, and seeking to educate and connect people. It’s a facility, rather than an advertisement, and therefore it generates good will. This is the key to running a successful project on social media: you have to be generous, and try to give more than you expect to receive.
Tags: bebo, government, HSE, Irish, social media