Online reach and engagement of a child nutrition peer-education program (PICNIC): insights from social media and web analytics

Background Parents frequently seek parental advice online and on social media; thus, these channels should be better utilized in child health interventions. The Parents in Child Nutrition Informing Community (PICNIC) program aims to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of evidence-based child feeding information and support parents within their social networks. The present study aimed to explore web and social media analytics to evaluate reach and user engagement with the PICNIC online components. Methods Online user activity data from the PICNIC Facebook closed group and public Page were collected through Facebook Insights, and program-specific website traffic data through Google Analytics. Analytics data from Nov-2019 to April-2021 was evaluated through visualisation and summary statistics to obtain insights into program growth and current reach in Australia, compare demographics of audience reached through the online channels, and explore parents’ use and engagement in PICNIC content. Results Results showed steady program growth in the 18 months of recruitment; participant numbers grew from 102 to 261 peer educators while the Facebook Page audience increased threefold, totalling 1615 followers. Intervention posts shared on Facebook (4–5 posts/week) typically reached only a portion of PICNIC Page followers each week, but also reached a wider audience through their friends. Throughout the evaluated period, Facebook users actively engaged in PICNIC posts, although the level of engagement varied considerably from post to post. Furthermore, results from this study suggest the strategy of directing potentially interested parents from social media to the website for program sign-up was successful. Finally, the explored data gave insights into users’ availability, demographics and engagement, which will be used to inform refinement of the PICNIC website and social media strategies. Conclusions Our findings confirm the benefits of using a peer education approach and existing social network channels to disseminate evidence-based child feeding information to parents. This study also demonstrates the usefulness of web and social media analytics to be used as part of a continuous evaluation for gaining insight to inform further development and improvement of program strategies. Trial registration The PICNIC project was retrospectively submitted for registration with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR), ACTRN12622000230752 (09/02/2022). Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13252-3.

Data from the online sources was summarized per week in order to observe growth and trends over time, and in relation to the ongoing recruitment, educational workshops held, and the covid-19 pandemic. Growth was described as the number of enrolled peer educators during the period, the net increase of Fb Page followers/fans, and new visits to the website. Reach on Fb was explored using both per-page and per-post reach and impression metrics (further explanations in Additional File 1). In order to understand to what extend PICNIC Fb posts reached (were shown to) people who followed the Page, an overall estimate (%) was calculated based on non-viral reach in relation to the total number of Page followers across the whole period. This was calculated both on page-level (using non-viral reach of Page content per day or week) and post-level (total per post). Viral reach (a type of 'peer-to-peer' organic reach) was assessed to get an indication of the reach of posts to people who were not Page followers but saw PICNIC Page content in their news feed because their Fb friend engaged in or shared the posts, liked or followed the Fb Page etc. Reach of the website over time was examined using weekly number of sessions (website visits) and unique users. each specific hour and weekday was extracted from GA and plotted in a heat map to get insights into when most website visits occurred. The website data was summarized for the entire 1.5-year period and not compared across months, because of relatively few data points (sessions) per hour.

Audience demographics
Gender and age data was compared across the channels and audiences reached: enrolled peer educators, Fb Group members, Fb Page followers/fans, Fb users reached by Page posts, and PICNIC website visitors ( Figure 1). The same six age categories were used by all channels. Gender and age information from surveys were available for 100% and 78% of the total 261 enrolled peer educators, respectively.
Through Fb Insights, data was available for all Fb Group members and Page followers, and almost all (>98%) of the Fb users reached by the intervention through Page posts. GA only collects demographics data on a subset of website users (e.g., when DoubleClick cookies are present, or users are logged in to Google), and during the 1.5-year period gender and age information were available for about 37% of PICNIC website users in Australia.

Facebook engagement analyses
Engagement from the audience on Fb is considered important, especially with organic content, since more engagement generally means more exposure (post reach) on the platform [1]. An Engagement Rate can be calculated in multiple ways, each with a different method of interpretation. Because posts are typically not shown to all followers, a preferred method is to compare engagements with the number of users who actually saw the post (total reach) [2]. In this study we chose to focus on the perpost engagement and calculated engagement rate as: Lifetime Engaged Users (Unique Users) / Lifetime Post Total reach (Unique Users)*100; this gives an estimate of how many of the people who actually saw the post also chose to engage with it (i.e., commenting on, liking, sharing, or clicking on particular elements of the post).

Website engagement and conversion analyses
Website user engagement can be assessed in different ways. Bounce rate, user retention, session duration, and pages/session are user behavior metrics commonly explored in digital marketing.
However, the type and purpose of the website will determine what analytics are appropriate to use, and caution should be taken when interpreting the data because of the way some of these dimensions are measured. Thus, web analytics should focus on trends and comparisons rather than single numbers. To address the first aim of the PICNIC website-to provide feeding information to parents-we explored what pages were most popular. Using heat maps, the total number of unique page views were compared between website pages. The website was also used for recruitment by directing interested parents to the EOI form (located on the "Join PICNIC" page), often through a direct link in a social media post. To evaluate this strategy, we first assessed the number of users that submitted the EOI (considered "conversions" in this context). This was done by using the specific URL for its 'thank you' page. Then, key engagement metrics, gender, acquisition, device and top landing pages in sessions with no interaction with the EOI page were compared to sessions where users viewed and/or submitted the EOI form. This data was compiled in GA using customized segments filtered by sessions and the specific URLs. Furthermore, when websites contain a search function it can be useful to assess the search terms used. This can give insights into what type of information users are looking for, and can be used to improve the website structure/navigation (to make sure people find what they are looking for) or the addition of information (for instance, if users tend to search for a type of information that is not yet provided on the website). In PICNIC, search term data was extracted from the 'All pages' Behaviour report in GA, using the data for search results pages identified using their specific URLs. Finally, user acquisition and device used was also summarized based on all recorded sessions.