Are social networks effective in promoting healthy behaviors? A systematic review of evaluations of public health campaigns broadcast on Twitter

Faus, Mireia; Alonso, Francisco; Javadinejad, Arash; Useche, Sergio A.

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.1045645

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The field of social marketing [18,19] has studied how to use communication strategies to persuade people to change their public health behaviors. Research on social media campaigns, has found that these campaigns can spread messaging, but there has been limited work on the extent to which social media campaigns change behavior [20,21]. The effect of social media campaigns may also depend on audience skepticism-past work has found that consumers who are more skeptical about advertising like advertising less and are less responsive to advertising than those who are less skeptical [22].…”

Section: Short Messages As a Medium Of Persuasionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of short messages encouraging prevention behaviors early in the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2023

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Effectively addressing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic requires persuading the mass public to change their behavior in significant ways. Many efforts to encourage behavior change–such as public service announcements, social media posts, and billboards–involve short, persuasive appeals, yet the effectiveness of these messages is unclear. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, we tested whether short messages could increase intentions to comply with public health guidelines. To identify promising messages, we conducted two pretests (n = 1,596) in which participants rated the persuasiveness of 56 unique messages: 31 based on the persuasion and social influence literatures and 25 drawn from a pool of crowdsourced messages generated by online respondents. The four top-rated messages emphasized: (1) civic responsibility to reciprocate the sacrifices of health care workers, (2) caring for the elderly and vulnerable, (3) a specific, sympathetic victim, and (4) limited health care system capacity. We then conducted three well-powered, pre-registered experiments (total n = 3,719) testing whether these four top-rated messages, and a standard public health message based on language from the CDC, increased intentions to comply with public health guidelines, such as masking in public spaces. In Study 1, we found the four messages and the standard public health message significantly outperformed a null control. In Studies 2 and 3, we compared the effects of persuasive messages to the standard public health message, finding that none consistently out-performed the standard message. This is in line with other research showing minimal persuasive effects of short messages after the very early stages of the pandemic. Across our studies, we found that (1) short messages can increase intentions to comply with public health guidelines, but (2) short messages featuring persuasive techniques from the social science literature did not substantially outperform standard public health messages.

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Section: Short Messages As a Medium Of Persuasionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of short messages encouraging prevention behaviors early in the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2023

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“…Behavioral messages are the least published; however, companies should focus their attention on this type of tweet since they are the ones that encourage users to carry out a specific action and also convert said users to be vocal promoters of social causes (Guidry et al, 2014;Faus et al, 2022;Neiger et al, 2013;Shawky et al, 2019). The dialogue and interaction between the public and the company foster user support for the brand (Du and Vieira, 2012;Green and Peloza, 2011).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conclusion Discussion Practical Implications Limitations And...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring social responsibility, social marketing and happiness using artificial intelligence, automated text analysis and correspondence analysis

Coronil

Montero

Sánchez

et al. 2023

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PurposeThis work aims to examine the communication on Twitter of the most responsible companies in Spain to identify the topics covered on corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of happiness and social marketing. In addition, the profiles of the messages that show an association with the impact of the messages have been identified.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical analysis of the Twitter posts of Spain's ten most responsible companies has been carried out. The methodology of this work combines data mining techniques, sentiment analysis and content analysis, both from a quantitative and qualitative approach.FindingsThe results show that most brand tweets do not deal with CSR-related topics. The topics they address the most are those related to sports and the weather. From the perspective of social marketing, conversational-type tweets are the most published and have achieved the most significant reaction from the public. In addition, four messages' profiles have been identified based on the company and the emotional connotation associated with the impact, giving rise to more outstanding promotion of social causes.Originality/valueOur main contribution to this work has been to value positive communication and social marketing to promote better CSR on Twitter. In this sense, it has been verified that there is a relationship between the public's reaction, the affective connotation and the company that issues the messages.

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“…It is important to note that evidence supporting the use of these channels in healthcare interventions is not yet clear. While some researchers refer to the potential of social media interventions for other health fields, for example for improving exercise behaviors [24,25], for improving health literacy and promoting behavior change [26,27], or delivering interventions to minority groups [28]; other researchers have highlighted the lack of a strong evidence supporting the use of these channels in healthcare interventions and therefore claiming more research on this field [29,30]. Evidence on the effectiveness of social media interventions for mental health is similar.…”

Section: Reflections On the Trends And Recommendations For Future Res...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Evolution of Social Media in Mental Health Interventions: A Mapping Review

Gabarron,

Reichenpfader,

Denecke

2023

Yearb Med Inform

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Background: With the rise of social media, social media use for delivering mental health interventions has become increasingly popular. However, there is no comprehensive overview available on how this field developed over time. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to provide an overview over time of the use of social media for delivering mental health interventions. Specifically, we examine which mental health conditions and target groups have been targeted, and which social media channels or tools have been used since this topic first appeared in research. Methods: To provide an overview of the use of social media for mental health interventions, we conducted a search for studies in four databases (PubMed; ACM Digital Library; PsycInfo; and CINAHL) and two trial registries (Clinicaltrials.gov; and Cochranelibrary.com). A sample of representative keywords related to mental health and social media was used for that search. Automatic text analysis methods (e.g., BERTopic analysis, word clouds) were applied to identify topics, and to extract target groups and types of social media. Results: A total of 458 studies were included in this review (n=228 articles, and n=230 registries). Anxiety and depression were the most frequently mentioned conditions in titles of both articles and registries. BERTopic analysis identified depression and anxiety as the main topics, as well as several addictions (including gambling, alcohol, and smoking). Mental health and women's research were highlighted as the main targeted topics of these studies. The most frequently targeted groups were “adults” (39.5%) and “parents” (33.4%). Facebook, WhatsApp, messenger platforms in general, Instagram, and forums were the most frequently mentioned tools in these interventions. Conclusions: We learned that research interest in social media-based interventions in mental health is increasing, particularly in the last two years. A variety of tools have been studied, and trends towards forums and Facebook show that tools allowing for more content are preferred for mental health interventions. Future research should assess which social media tools are best suited in terms of clinical outcomes. Additionally, we conclude that natural language processing tools can help in studying trends in research on a particular topic.

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Are social networks effective in promoting healthy behaviors? A systematic review of evaluations of public health campaigns broadcast on Twitter

Cited by 25 publications

References 64 publications

The effects of short messages encouraging prevention behaviors early in the COVID-19 pandemic

The effects of short messages encouraging prevention behaviors early in the COVID-19 pandemic

Exploring social responsibility, social marketing and happiness using artificial intelligence, automated text analysis and correspondence analysis

Exploring the Evolution of Social Media in Mental Health Interventions: A Mapping Review

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