Blogs

The Inception

It all began on the evening of March the 27^th of 2015. It was nothing so special about the day ; a normal Friday evening when a small team including Executive Chairperson – Dr Sushil Baral, a member of Board of Directors – Rajesh Ghimire and myself were having a formal-cum-informal discussion about finding ways of increasing our organization’s visibility. We had just started Twitter and thought if we were to reach out to young, budding enthusiasts who would be interested in our work, we should start using Facebook, the most common social media, at least in Nepal. So, that evening I started a page with our organization’s logo and a panorama shot of our office setting (which even foreigners acknowledge to be of international standard) clicked by Santosh (our Data Management Officer) as cover page of our Facebook page.

The Zeal

We had recently established a separate unit – Research Uptake and Communications that would be dedicated to highlighting various activities of our research/programme projects through various communications channels and Facebook page certainly opened doors for us. Facebook also provided an ‘extra word count facility’ where we could explain a bit more about our activities.

We gradually started posting various news and stories related to our projects. I also began realizing that as a Communications professional, you got to know how to produce your own stories rather than just wait for any event to be organized. Then, my mobile phone became my best friend and most supportive tool. As I saw any team members busy preparing themselves to go to the field, I would click their photos, I would just pass by any training event and interview a participant randomly to get their opinion about the programme. I would also request my fellow colleagues to send me pictures and texts of some events where I could not participate so that all events go noticed in our page.

From Being Good to Being Better

We were doing pretty fine with our posts and likes but something wasn’t clicking properly. I was gradually realizing it as the momentum was constant and not picking up. I then thought of getting some professional advice. These days, online sources are a great help and free of cost! I started taking up free webinars on social media. It was particularly tough physically and mentally to be awake and attentive as the webinars would take place during odd hours (12 midnight to 2 am) and during week days. However, the webinars were such a great source of learning that I couldn’t afford to miss. The tips that I gained from those webinars showed me the way. I learnt from these webinars various tips such as the appropriate times for the likelihood of more reachability of the posts, what sort of content is most liked by the readers and the right frequency of posts depending upon the type of organization. I started practicing the tips that I learnt from the webinars and they were effective indeed. It was definitely an off-office hour to post about an event early morning (about 7 am), during lunch (about 1 pm) or late evening (about 8 pm) on Facebook but interestingly it was an ideal time to post on Facebook as it would have probability of maximum reachability during those time-scales.

The Mentorship

While I was developing posts for Facebook, I was getting continuous guidance and suggestions from my mentor and my boss Dr Sushil Baral. With his support, I was able to understand what sort of content needs to be highlighted in social media and to what extent. He would always make me wary of the thin line between ‘under-publicity’ and ‘over-publicity’ of the organization so that the intended messages do not get misinterpreted. At this point of time, I would also like to thank COMDIS-HSD Research Uptake Unit, especially my communications manager Dr Nilam Ashra McGrath for her constant support and encouragement.

270 days and 1K Likes - The Journey Continues

Every post had a purpose. It was not just a matter of having an additional like to the page or the post but the message it would carry. We are thankful to each and every one who have supported us in this journey.  We are glad that in the space of 270 days, we were able to reach the 1000 Likes Landmark. We believe that we can achieve much more with our continuous effort and your overwhelming support.