The National Nutrition Council – NCR (NNC-NCR) recognizes the need to capitalize on the use of social media for the promotion of good nutrition since almost everyone uses the different social media platforms, especially Facebook.

As of the 3rd quarter of 2019, Facebook, together with Youtube were the most popularly used social media platforms in the country with almost 74 million Facebook users from Philippines alone. (Statistica, 2020)

Nowadays, almost all agencies and local government units (LGU) have their own social media account to promote their programs and activities in a wider audience both locally and globally.

This is the reason why NNC-NCR continuously capacitates the Metro Manila local government units (LGUs) on how to manage and maintain their respective local nutrition committee (LNC) Facebook pages for nutrition promotion and advocacy. The LGUs use their FB fan page to inform the public of their nutrition projects and activities and to promote positive nutrition behaviors among their target audiences. 

Part of an effective social media management is the creation of good content to engage and connect with target audiences. To capacitate the LGUs on how to create good quality content, a webinar on social media management and content creation for effective nutrition promotion was conducted by NNC-NCR on October 15, 2020 via Zoom. One of the objectives of the webinar was to teach participants on how to effectively promote the key nutrition messages in social media to influence more people to practice healthy eating and positive nutrition behaviors.

The webinar was attended by 46 local nutrition program coordinators, nutrition personnel and members of local nutrition committee (LNC) from the 17 LGUs in NCR who are involved in managing their LNC FB Page.

Social Media Manager and Information Officer II of Philippine Information Agency-NCR (PIA-NCR), Ms. Jenny Red, oriented the participants on how to create engaging contents and provided tips on how to effectively manage their LNC Facebook Page using analytics. She also provided tips on what to consider when creating videos and social media cards for their FB pages.

Participants were tasked to create a social media card on nutrition for the elderly. Ms. Red encouraged the participants to consider these questions while developing their content: (a) Why are you on social media?; (b) What are the objectives of your LNC FB Page?; (c) What is the objective of the social media card/set you are currently doing?; (d) Who are you talking to or your target audience (age group, gender, location); and (e) What time will you post this social media card based on your analytics?.

Due to time constraints, only four (4) LGUs were able to present their output for critiquing during the webinar. The remaining LGUs submitted their outputs via email and Ms. Red, together with Misses Alaine Allanigue and Gelaine Gutierrez of PIA-NCR, gave recommendations on how to improve their social media cards. Ms. Red also shared the tools that the participants can use in creating engaging social media content. 

NNC-NCR Regional Nutrition Program Coordinator Milagros Elisa V. Federizo expressed her hope that the participants will apply all the learnings from this webinar in making their FB pages more engaging and informative.

“In this digital age, it is important that we know how to effectively use social media as an avenue in disseminating correct nutrition information to the general public and to targeted primary audiences to influence them to adopt positive nutrition behaviors,”  RNPC Federizo said. She added, “That is our main goal: to disseminate the right information and influence people to practice good nutrition and consequently, improve their nutritional status.”

After the webinar, participants are expected to maximize the use of their LNC Facebook pages by planning their social media calendars and creating good quality content to reach more people and influence them to eat and live healthy. (TAR/NPC MEVF/NNC-NCR)