PREPARED BY: Communications

DATE: 2026-09-24

For public health units, maintaining a social media presence yields significant benefits, particularly in terms of reach throughout the community and the ability to share communication in a timely manner. Keeping an account on any social platform requires ongoing staff time, monitoring, and alignment with organizational values. If a platform does not reliably reach priority audiences, does not support constructive two-way engagement, or requires more staff support than the value it provides, maintaining an active presence may no longer benefit the organization.

To date, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) has maintained presence on four social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter). Over the last year, it has become evident that the WECHU’s followers and engagement have steadily declined on X. Coupled with the factors of the character count limits on posts and the politically charged environment of the platform, the notion of deactivating WECHU’s X account has been investigated. 

DISCUSSION

Previously, X provided an additional channel for public health updates; however, changes to the platform have reduced its value for some public-sector and health organizations. These changes include declining engagement, reduced confidence in content moderation, greater exposure to misinformation and hostile commentary, and an increased effort to tailor content for the platform. To determine whether continued use of X remains appropriate, the Communications Department considered four main factors including platform metrics, staff resources, platform limitations, and other Ontario-based public health unit utilization of X. 

Over the last two years, a steady decline in followers has been noted (a net decline of 402 followers) while other platforms have grown. Additionally, the WECHU has had very limited interaction and engagement on X compared to Meta (i.e., Facebook and Instagram) by way of comments, questions, and direct messages. 

When considering human resources, X requires the Communications Department to edit and rework most posts to meet strict character count limits (i.e., 280 characters including spaces). Not only does this take staff time, but it can also devalue the message when content needs to be reduced. In cases where the original post contains too much information to meet the limit, it is not shared on X. This reduces the volume of content released on the platform which can lower the WECHU’s presence and likelihood of our posts being displayed to users overall. 

Finally, a scan of Ontario public health units yielded data to strengthen the argument of deactivating the account. Of the 20 stand-alone public health units (i.e., those not integrated into a municipality), only 6 regularly utilized an X account, including the WECHU. This translates to 65% of Ontario PHUs without an active account on X.

As such, the WECHU will issue a post on October 1 to inform followers that the account is no longer active, directing them to follow us on Facebook for public health updates. To avoid the risk of another person or organization utilizing our username and posting misinformation, the account will not be formally deactivated. Additionally, the August Monthly Communications Report provided in the Board of Health package will be the final report to include metrics pulled from X (i.e., followers, posts).