Facebook has launched another push in order to help maximize COVID-19 vaccine take-up, this time through new, in-feed alerts which will help users to get the vaccine, as soon as they’re qualified to do so.

Facebook’s Vaccine Awareness Prompts: 

Based on Facebook’s vaccine awareness prompts and as shown in the above example, once vaccines are available in your region, Facebook will immediately show users these prompts within their News Feed in order to help raise awareness of that availability.

Facebook’s taking the same approach to this as it did to prompt election participation in the US – in light of this, Facebook explains:
“Just as we ran state-specific notifications in News Feed about registering to vote and voting by mail ahead of each state’s deadlines, we’re tailoring COVID-19 vaccine notifications to coincide with each state opening their eligibility to all adults so we don’t promote vaccines before everyone is eligible. We are ultimately rolling out these notifications nationally across the US and globally as more countries expand vaccinations.”

Furthermore, as the vaccines become publicly available in your region, Facebook will prompt users, based on age, as to how they can go about getting a vaccination.

In light of Facebook’s vaccine awareness prompts and according to Facebook: “When a state says the general public is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, we’ll show a notification to people in that state that connects them with their state health department or our Vaccine Finder. We’re already doing this in states such as Alaska, Mississippi, Texas, and Utah.”

Given its wide reach, Facebook is in a good position to help maximize vaccine messaging, not only that but also it’s looking to do its part through these different initiatives.

And those efforts are having an impact, as per Facebook:

“From January through March, over 3 million people in the US clicked through our News Feed promotions and our COVID-19 Information Center to visit their state health website or local provider. And showing people this information right in their News Feed is having a positive impact on vaccine registrations.”

Moreover, given Facebook’s reach, as well as the capacity to highlight friends and family who have taken the vaccine, it can play a vital role in helping to ensure take-up, which will ultimately bring us closer to a return to normalcy.

Of course, we can’t forget Facebook’s role in spreading vaccine misinformation over time, which it’s also looking to address, and will be working to better assess moving forward.

Talking more about Facebook’s vaccine awareness, maximizing vaccine take-up is key, also these initiatives will help to boost that push.