Facebook-Based Social Marketing to Reduce Smoking in Australia’s First Nations Communities: An Analysis of Reach, Shares, and Likes

Abstract

Background Facebook is widely used by Australia’s First Nations people and has significant potential to promote health. However, evidence-based guidelines for its use in health promotion are lacking. Smoking prevalence among Australia’s First Nations people is nearly 3 times higher than other Australians. Locally designed programs in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHOs) to reduce smoking often use Facebook. Objective This study reports on an analysis of the reach and engagement of Facebook posts with smoking prevention and cessation messages posted by ACCHOs in the Northern Territory, Australia. Methods Each service posted tobacco control content at least weekly for approximately 6 months. Posts were coded for the following variables: service posted, tailored First Nations Australian content, local or nonlocally produced content, video or nonvideo, communication technique, and emotional appeal. The overall reach, shares, and reactions were calculated. Results Compared with posts developed by the health services, posts with content created by other sources had greater reach (adjusted incident rate ratio [IRR] 1.92, 95% CI 1.03-3.59). Similarly, reactions to posts (IRR 1.89, 95% CI 1.40-2.56) and shared posts (IRR 2.17, 95% CI 1.31-3.61) with content created by other sources also had more reactions, after controlling for reach, as did posts with local First Nations content compared with posts with no First Nations content (IRR 1.71, 95% CI 1.21-2.34). Conclusions Facebook posts with nonlocally produced content can be an important component of a social media campaign run by local health organizations. With the exception of nonlocally produced content, we did not find a definitive set of characteristics that were clearly associated with reach, shares, and reactions. Beyond reach, shares, and likes, further research is needed to understand the extent that social media content can influence health behavior.

Smokers’ Engagement Behavior on Facebook: Verbalizing and Visual Expressing the Smoking Cessation Process

“…Smokers can express change talk with the “Love” reaction, and sustain talk with the “Haha” reaction, when reacting to Facebook posts supporting smoking cessation. This seems to be an important result in this area since Facebook-based smoking cessation interventions usually use reaction buttons as a common indicator of engagement, regardless of their emotional background or meaning [ 24 , 25 , 47 ].…”

Facebook Users’ Interactions, Organic Reach, and Engagement in a Smoking Cessation Intervention: Content Analysis

“…It should be emphasized that only original Facebook posts were analyzed to evaluate the users’ response given to the same stimulus. Therefore, shared Facebook posts were ignored, because in these cases, Facebook users’ responses could have been influenced by other stimuli (eg, the Facebook profile of the person who shared the content), which may have resulted in a higher rate of interactions than the original content [ 18 ].…”

“…This algorithm is reviewed annually, but the details of the Facebook algorithm are unknown (ie, not published) [11,15]. However, some major elements of the algorithm which may determine the Facebook News Feed content are suspected, such as the Facebook user's past activity (eg, sending a message to the page or using the "page like" button); the past activity of the Facebook page (eg, violating the Facebook Community Standards); the performance of the given post (the rate of "like," "shares," "clicks," or other interactions); the post type (eg, image or video); or the timing of the published content (eg, novelty) [2,11,[16][17][18].…”

“…Therefore, Facebook must filter the social media contents for the users, and contents compete with each other to reach Facebook users [ 15 , 16 ]. This phenomenon has opened an exciting direction for research to reveal the opportunities to increase organic post reach in Facebook-based public health interventions [ 17 , 18 ]. Because of the increasing number of posts, Facebook provides only the most relevant content to each user [ 15 , 18 ].…”

“…This phenomenon has opened an exciting direction for research to reveal the opportunities to increase organic post reach in Facebook-based public health interventions [ 17 , 18 ]. Because of the increasing number of posts, Facebook provides only the most relevant content to each user [ 15 , 18 ]. The basis of this highly personalized filtering is the “Facebook algorithm of content ranking,” which ranks all available posts that can be displayed on a user’s News Feed.…”