HELB and KSA Lead Public Institutions Use of Social Media, PSC Says

Kenya’s public institutions are increasingly turning to social media to promote national values, with Facebook leading the way.

Under Section 11 of the Public Service (Values and Principles) Act, CAP 185A, public institutions are required to promote public participation in upholding public service values through citizens’ forums, community groups, and public engagement at all levels.

Social media has become a primary tool for fulfilling that mandate.

The numbers explain why. Kenya’s social media use continues to grow, and the 2024 Media Council Report explains why social media has become hard to ignore.

“Social media was the second most consumed medium of communication and source of information at 24%, after television, with 26%,” according to the report.

Most Kenyans (31%) spend at least three hours daily on social media, while 18% use it for communication, 18% for entertainment, and 15% for news and information.

The Public Service Commission‘s 2024/2025 compliance evaluation report found that 200 (39.1%) of 511 evaluated institutions used social media to promote values and principles.

311 (60.9%) public bodies did not make use of social media during the referenced period.

This represents a dramatic reversal; in 2023/2024, 65.4% of institutions used social media for values promotion. That figure has collapsed to 39.1% in a single year, a drop of over 26 percentage points.

PSC does not offer reasons for the dip. However, compared to other media, social media still outperforms print.

The report shows that only 172 (33.7%) institutions used print media, including magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, while 200 (39.1%) used social media.

Facebook Leads, Instagram and X Follow

Facebook has topped the rankings in both the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 evaluation periods.

Kenya Academy of Sports Tops in Social Media Activity

Kenya Academy of Sports (KSA) and HELB, two institutions whose audience is more likely to be young Kenyans, topped in social media activity.

Education and Training Top Focus of Government Outreach

Notably, Governance and Accountability, the category most central to the Public Service Act’s mandate, ranked third at 9.9%, behind Education and Cultural Activities.

The government’s embrace of social media for public communication sits awkwardly alongside its repeated attempts to control it.

Courts have ruled the government cannot block social media platforms, struck down cybercrime provisions targeting online publications, and rejected social media censorship measures.

The PSC recommends that public institutions leverage their existing social media followings more actively. The audience is already there and growing.

GoK has lost three court battles trying to restrict social media. The PSC is now recommending that its own institutions use it more.