FAO partners with social media networks to promote World Food Day

Beijing - On the occasion of World Food Day 2020, FAO China Office collaborated with Toutiao, a popular Chinese social media network with 120 million daily active users, to organize the Food Heroes Campaign and celebrate food heroes who contributed to ensuring food supply during the COVID-19 outbreak. Various organizations and general public were invited to contact FAO-China and nominate the food heroes they know.

On 16 October, 15 candidate profiles were selected and posted for public voting on Toutiao. During the ten-day voting period from 16 to 25 October, the total votes for 15 candidates reached 1,154,727. The top five candidates receiving the most votes were awarded the titles of Food Heroes 2020.

This campaign attracted wide media coverage and raised the visibility of Food Heroes, World Food Day and FAO. On Toutiao, the total exposure of the campaign reached over 44 million, including the clicks through opening screen advertisements and on the hashtags #FoodHeroes and #SearchingFoodHeroes, initiated by FAO China Office. The Food Heroes campaign also attracted dozens media outlets to cover it, with more than 100 new articles posted with reference to this campaign.

Through the collaboration with Toutiao social media platform, FAO has successfully leveraged pro bono advertising opportunities for the campaign, including opening-screen advertisement and campaign promotion. In total, the value of the pro bono advertising was worth about USD 1.3 million.

The campaign was also posted and promoted on Weibo, another popular Chinese social media platform, with the hashtags #FoodHeroes and #WFD. It contributed to the visibility of WFD, attracting about 560 million clicks on Weibo.