Facebook campaign drives students to online screening
Facebook.com
is ubiquitous when it comes to online social networking. Beginning with a few
Harvard University students and expanding in four short years to over 120 million users worldwide,
Facebook has become a household name.
Started in February 2004, Facebook is a social networking site that connects people who
live near each other, have the same hobbies, and share friends. Since its
launch, Facebook has grown significantly in users and capabilities. Today, it
has not only formed a new generation, it has also changed the way we interact.
Many businesses, charities, and nonprofit organizations are using Facebook to
promote their programs. Screening for Mental Health® (SMH) is one of
them. SMH is using this technology to help colleges promote their online mental
health screening programs.
SMH’s National Depression Screening Day® (NDSD) has been successful in motivating
college students to screen themselves for depression, bipolar disorder,
posttraumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. This year,
Facebook proved to be a great tool to improve the reach of the program and
increase the number of students screened. After the success of the Facebook
advertisement for National Eating Disorders Screening Program® (NEDSP)
in February of 2008, it was a natural next step to use it to promote the NDSD
program. For this campaign, SMH ran an ad on Facebook for both the week during
and after National Depression Screening Day (October 10) for all the colleges
that participated in the NDSD online screening program. When clicked, the ad
brought students to their college’s customized NDSD online screening website.
The ad appeared on students’ Facebook accounts, and read: “Stressed,
Sad, Anxious? Take a free, anonymous screening to learn more for you or a
friend.”
The campaign was a huge success. With 312 schools involved in the online screening program, 6,082
students were brought to their college’s online screening website. Once on this
site, students were able to access screenings for depression, bipolar disorder,
generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, eating disorders,
and alcohol use. During the weeks that the ad ran on Facebook, there was a 132%
increase in the number of students screened for depression, 103% increase in
screening for bipolar disorder, 115% increase for generalized anxiety disorder,
and a 112% increase for posttraumatic stress disorder.
SMH will run additional Facebook ads for both the National Eating Disorders Screening
Program in February/March and National Alcohol Screening Day® in
April.
For more ideas on how to improve your school’s mental health screening promotion efforts,
email us
or call 781.239.0071.
Learn more about SMH’s college programs.