Health Canada Posts Controversial Topics on Facebook

Health Canada communicates and educates with social media

Health Canada has an active presence on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. They post about anything that is health-related that may be of interest to Canadians, from product recalls to vacation safety tips to vaccination. Their posts are usually of an educational or informative basis.

At the time of writing this blog post, May 8th 2019, the following for Health Canada on their social media networks are as follows:

• Facebook: 111,142
• Twitter: 229,000
• LinkedIn: 99,752
• YouTube: 4,549

Analysis of the Health Canada Facebook page

For the purpose of this blog post, we decided to take a look at Health Canada’s Facebook page because it has the highest level of engagement per post compared to all of the Health Canada social sites. We also decided to look at only 2019 posts, therefore the following analysis looks at all of the Health Canada Facebook posts from January 1 2019 to May 1 2019.

The Health Canada Facebook page actually goes by the name of “Healthy Canadians“. The page has been in existence since November 2019, and it is managed by 46 Canadian administrators. Approximately 3 posts get published per day on the Health Canada Facebook page, the majority of which are accompanied by a photo, and a few with a video. Health Canada promotes some of its posts, so it is possible that Canadians have seen some of their promoted posts even if they do not follow their page.

Examples of recently promoted Health Canada Facebook posts:

Statistics on Health Canada Facebook Posts

Health Canada posted a total of 376 posts during the first five months of 2019. Most posts are unique in their messaging or are repeated just a few times. For the purpose of this article, we picked out the posts that seemed to repeat a similar message most frequently. Here is what we found;

• 32 posts on the topic of recalls, which involved either foods or products,
• 24 posts on the topic of vaccinations,
• 16 posts on the topic of measles,
• 12 posts on vaping,
• 12 posts on cannabis and
• 10 posts on opioids.

The posts that generated the most engagement were on the following topics:

1. Measles
2. Vaccination (related to flu or measles)
3. Recall (food or product)
4. Vaping **
5. Opioid **
6. Cannabis **

** Note that although the vaping, opioid, cannabis topics came in 4th, 5th and 6th place respectively, their total numbers were well below those of the top 3 topics, in the range of 1-4% the total engagement of the top 3 topics.

The posts that generated the most shares were on the following topics:

1. Recall (food or product)
2. Measles
3. Vaccination (related to flu or measles)

The posts that generated the most comments were on the following topics:

1. Measles
2. Vaccination
3. Recall **

** Note that although recall came in 3rd place, its total was well below those of the top 2 topics.

The posts that generated the most likes were on the following topics:

1. Measles
2. Recall
3. Vaccination (related to flu or measles)
4. Opioid **
5. Vaping **

** Note that although the opioid and vaping topics came in 4th and 5th place respectively, their total numbers were well below those of the top 3 topics.

The posts that generated the most angry face reactions were on the following topics:

1. Measles
2. Salmonella
3. Vaccination (related to flu or measles)

The posts that generated the most surprise ‘wow’ reactions were on the following topics:

1. Recall (food or product), by about 5 fold the amount of ‘wow’ reactions for the topic in 2nd place
2. Measles
3. Vaccination

Some of the Health Canada Facebook posts are controversial

It is clear that some of Health Canada’s Facebook posts are generating controversy, particularly those generating comments and angry face reactions; measles and vaccination. We are not all that surprised by this but what was surprising was the level of engagement on these two topics compared to the others.

Are people clicking on the angry reaction because they do not like the stance that Health Canada is taking and feel offended, or is it because people who do agree with Health Canada’s stance are angry about the situation? We do not know. However, we do know that this is generating a tremendous opportunity for discussion particularly as we see a large amount of discussion in the comments of both topics. These are obviously delicate and touchy subjects. We commend Health Canada for not shying away from such sensitive topics, as there needs to be education and discussion, and who better than Health Canada to address such issues head-on.

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This can help you better design your communication strategy and content, schedule your posts during optimal times and post with an ideal frequency. Since the analysis can be done on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, our research can help you identify where your audience is more responsive. What we have shown in this particular article is simply a few highlights of what we can uncover for one particular social network.

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