Social Media platforms have prioritized putting effort into helping authorities and health agencies with tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, and now Facebook has officially announced that it will be providing free development services to health authorities and agencies so they could have the help needed to access and use Messenger to scale their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Social Media Today.
“We’re launching a global program to connect government health organizations and UN health agencies with developers that can help them use Messenger most effectively to share timely and accurate information, and speed up their responses to concerned citizens,” according to Facebook. “Our developer partners have offered to provide their services free of charge to these organizations during this crisis.”
Facebook’s main focus with this new initiative and effort is to help health authorites and agencies develop and produce automated responses and advice tools within Messenger, in hopes of reducing the burden and stress on overwhelmed staff, according to Social Media Today.
The Messenger team is looking to create multiple groups, automated messages and responses for every health organization and agency that is looking to set up onto Facebook’s Messenger, as well as provide tips and advice on how these agencies can share updates in the Messenger application effectively and help create a way to transition from automated conversations to a live conversation when needed, according to Social Media Today.
As Messenger is currently being used by over 1.3 billion people every month, it has become a key form of communication for many users and a way for providing constant updates and options to connect users to information that is relevant in helping the maximization of awareness within the community. In addition to this, Messenger is ensuring the latest updates in information is reaching their audience as much as possible, according to Social Media Today.
Messenger’s team is developing a seperate project as well as it will be inviting developers to participate in a hackathon which will be held online in order to focus on the use of the Messenger platform to build solutions that are focused on COVID-19 issues, such as social distancing and keeping users educated and informed, according to Social Media Today.Â
“Participants will be encouraged to build both global and local solutions and will receive unique access to Messenger-related content, including Facebook Live tutorials with product experts and a range of educational materials to support innovation,” according to Facebook. “Winners will get mentoring from Facebook engineers to help make these solutions a reality. They’ll also receive invitations to attend F8 2021, including flights and accommodations, and will be given the opportunity to participate in the F8 hackathon.”
These new projects are meant to help keep users on social media platforms informed and educated regarding this pandemic, and Facebook is taking the measures to ensure its users are kept updated with factual information during this tough time.
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