The National Accessibility Portal and social networking sites: How to make Facebook and Twitter work for you

The National Accessibility Portal (NAP) is a website specifically designed to give South Africans living with disabilities access to important information which may enhance their lives. This information includes lists of schools for children with disabilities, copies of legislation, interesting news articles, calendar of events applicable to people with disabilities, lists of vendors of assistive devices, etc. Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, attract millions of users. The question we asked was “Is there a way to harness the popularity of Facebook and Twitter in order to more widely publish the important information to be found on the NAP portal?” This paper describes how the developers of NAP used the various Facebook and Twitter facilities to reach a wider audience.