AFTER a colossal effort—545 million times—of posting and reacting to the Covid-19 issue on their Facebook accounts from May 2020 to January 2021 this year, Filipinos have slowed down the pace of discussions 10 months after the state of global pandemic was declared, according to data gathering and analysis agency BluePrint.PH.
The campaign consultancy firm focuses on sentiment analysis, audience research, social network engineering, and campaign planning.
In a webinar held Friday, BluePrint.PH Chief Executive Officer Eero Brillantes said 1.2 million posts were made by Filipino users of Facebook on Covid-19 from May 2020 to January 2021, with 545.07 million comments and reactions or emoticons: “like,” “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”
Brillantes pointed out that discussion of Covid-19 constituted 23 percent of all their posts, comments and reactions on Facebook during May 2020, then 16 percent in June, rising again to 19 percent in July with the rise in Covid-19 infections, then down to 15 percent in August, down to 9 percent in September, and gradually declined to only 4 percent in January 2021.
Nevertheless, Brillantes expressed concern over the scenario unfolding in Facebook as the country has been pummeled by the pandemic. “The dwindling numbers of Covid-19 interactions in Facebook is a matter that the government must consider especially with the low interest shown by the Filipino public in the vaccination program,” said Brillantes.
In a related development, Dr. Anthony Leachon said in one of his webinars that there must be education, motivation and a blueprint on spreading awareness of the impact of the pandemic. “There must be a blueprint not only on the local level but on the national level as well,” he said.
Starting from May 2020 to January 2021, Brilliantes pointed out that there were more than 545 million data points gathered from 1.2 million posts, 48.3 million comments, 81.6 million shares and 414 million reactions, he pointed out.
With close to 2 million data points, the top Facebook story was President Duterte’s announcement of cancellation of face-to-face classes without vaccines, followed by the expression of sympathy to Lloyd Café Cadena, a young social-media influencer who died from Covid-19.
Brillantes said the communique from President Duterte’s in May 2020 of the suspension of face-to-face classes generated the most number of “love” reactions, followed by the announcement of the K-pop superstar group BTS that it was performing an online concert to make up for its postponed concert at the start of the pandemic.
Other posts with high “love” reactions were Anne Curtis’s online greeting on Breastfeeding Month, Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto’s announcement of 100 newly regularized Pasig City Hall employees, and the willingness of Russia to give vaccines to the Philippines.
“Filipinos reacted positively to authoritative solutions to the pandemic,” as shown, he said by the concerns for students as “schools were supposed to reopen in June last year.”
Brillantes said, “We are also good at coping with our problems, as many among us dealt with our fears by turning to positive actions like that of the BTS giving an online concert to its global fans.”
