VaxSocial Learning Seminar #4

The fourth and final webinar in the VaxSocial Learning Seminar series explored the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of integrated digital tools across the VaxSocial portfolio. Building on previous discussions around social media in action, bridging online and offline engagement, and early impact and emerging outcomes, the session examined what the programme's evidence tells us about value for money, which models and partnerships are positioned to continue, and how integrated digital tools might be scaled while staying rooted in local context.

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The discussion highlighted a clear pattern on value: paid social media advertising made up only a small share of overall budgets, with greater investment going into content, trusted messengers and on-the-ground delivery such as WhatsApp support groups. Reach and recall were consistently high across campaigns, but did not always translate into vaccination behaviour. The strongest results appeared where social media was paired with an immediate call to action and trusted human support - connecting online engagement to a clear next step and a real opportunity to vaccinate.

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The session also shared preliminary portfolio-level scale figures, including more than 21 million people actively engaged in social media content or a digital health tool, 370,800 people onboarded to interactive two-way tools such as WhatsApp support groups, hotlines and chatbots, 3,000 healthcare workers trained, and an estimated 47,100 additional vaccinations. These figures are still being finalised and should be read as early estimates.

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The webinar featured a grantee spotlight presentation from WPP Media in India, with their Ghar Ghar Teeka campaign, sharing learnings from a human-supported WhatsApp chatbot intervention, in which frontline workers were trained to support caregivers through vaccination journeys, showing how digital tools and trusted local relationships can work together.

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The session also explored what the programme leaves behind in local health systems, built around four elements: the skills and capability of local actors, partnerships and ownership, evidence and learning, and reusable tools and infrastructure. Facilitated WhatsApp support groups offered the clearest signs of continuation, with designated ASHA champions in India equipped to run groups themselves and District Health Offices in Indonesia committing to continue CISDI's model through Puskesmas teams. These were described as commitments and capability now in place rather than guaranteed long-term continuation, with sustained delivery still dependent on local ownership and budgets for staff time.

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The webinar concluded by looking at scale, and what can be organised nationally - such as shared infrastructure, reusable chatbots and training materials - against what must remain local, including who delivers the message and how people are supported to act. This was illustrated across three operating models: a human-supported chatbot in India (WPP Media), health-system WhatsApp support groups in Indonesia (CISDI and GHS), and a digital-first chatbot in Nigeria (askNivi). The session closed by positioning integrated digital tools as most effective when they extend the health system, linking a clear behavioural need to trusted delivery, local ownership and services that can respond, rather than operating as standalone communications campaigns.