Toolkit Overview

The Physical Activity Messaging Toolkit is developed for individuals, partners and organizations that are interested in incorporating targeted, evidence-based messaging into their communication strategies. Providing measures to implement habits of physical activity will help to prevent the dangerous long-term effects of sedentary behavior, such as risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and certain types of cancer. Regular movement can help reduce risk of type-2 diabetes, osteoporosis, depression and premature death.

The toolkit provides guidelines for the use of messaging on various social channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Toolkit Downloads

Physical Activity Messaging for Social Media (Excel file)
Physical Activity Messaging Graphics (3.2mb zip file)
Physical Activity Messaging Poster (pdf)

social Messaging

If you run a social media account and want to provide messaging to your audiences, the Social Messaging sheet is a great resource to provide messaging on various themes such as:

• general recommendations
• how to make movement a healthy habit
• myths/facts
• physical activity FAQ's

To make your messaging more locally relevant, some posts will have bolded placeholders so that you can customize the post for your own event or activity.

The messaging contained in the sheet has been optimized for character-limit for usage across most major social channels. For additional tips and tools, there is a list of helpful links at the bottom of the page.

poster

The poster is designed to be printed as permanent signage for use at outdoor public locations such as swimming pools, walking paths, golf courses etc. 

• Letter (8.5"x11" PDF)

How to utilize the messaging and graphics*

1. Download the messaging assets and graphics

2. Determine which posts you will be posting/scheduling

3. Start a new post in your social network

4. Copy the message into the new post

5. Add the URL to the end of the message

6. Attach the corresponding graphic (if applicable)

7. Post/schedule!

*please note that different platforms will have different processes for entering in posts. For example, copying the post in Facebook will automatically pull up the page info. You can then copy the message into the messaging box.

Audience-specific tips

Parents/caregivers

• Target parents later in the evening, after their children have gone to bed
• Parents, particularly mothers, are more active on Facebook than other social channels

Youth/adolescents

• Post frequently as teenagers spend 6.3 hours/day on their smartphone
• The most popular social channels for youths and adolescents are: YouTube, lnstagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok.

Posting frequency

The following table is a high-level guideline on the recommended posting frequencies broken down by social networking platform. You might already experience great engagement on a few of these – continue to leverage these channels and post great content, often!

How Often Should You Post on Social Media? 

 Other Resources

• New to Social Media? Start with these 10 Best Practices (Kruse Control)
• The 7 Best Free Social Media Management Tools in 2019 (Wordstream) - tools that can help you manage multiple social profiles in one place, schedule posts in advance, track analytics across platforms
• How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 8 Easy Steps (HootSuite)
• Social Media Response Flow Chart for Small Businesses (Bplans)