Objectives:

• United Against Malaria is a partnership of footballers, non-governmental organizations, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, governments, corporations and fans who joined forces ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa to unite in the fight against malaria.
• Fast Web Media were engaged to provide technical development and social media marketing services. We were asked to develop and manage a Facebook channel and Twitter profile for the United Against Malaria campaign, in partnership with United Against Malaria in the USA.
• FWM’s brief was to develop the messaging globally so that it was less focussed on the USA and included more references to the football/FIFA World Cup aspect of the United Against Malaria campaign.

Strategy:

• We refreshed the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels using search marketing techniques.
• We created regular, topical and football-themed content to the Facebook group, Twitter and promoted the YouTube videos.
• We undertook an outreach strategy of identifying relevant Facebook groups across several sectors.
• We designed and built an application on Facebook, which sat on a tab within the United Against Malaria fan page. This application encouraged people to sign a virtual ball to show their support for UAM’s aims.
• We contacted our network of football bloggers asking them to feature the Sign the Ball on Facebook application as the World Cup approached.

Results:

• Increased number of Facebook fans by over 800%.
• Increased Twitter followers by over 650%.
• Interactions on the Facebook page increased x25.
• Page Views for the Facebook group increased from 2,375 over the previous 3 months to an average of 172,305 for the May to July period.