Use of Live Community Events on Facebook to Share Health and Clinical Research Information With a Minnesota Statewide Community: Exploratory Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Community-engagement can make a substantial difference in health outcomes, and strengthen the capacity to deal with disruptive public health events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media platforms such as Facebook is a promising avenue to reach the broader public and enhance access to clinical and translational science and requires further evaluations from the scientific community. OBJECTIVE To describe the use of live community events to enhance communication about clinical and health research through a Facebook platform (MN Research Link) with a Minnesota statewide community. We examined variables associated with video engagement including video length and type of posting. METHODS From June 2019 to February 2021, we streamed 36 events on the MN Research Link Facebook public page. Events highlighted different investigators’ clinical and health research in the areas of mental health, health and wellness, chronic diseases and immunology/infectious diseases. Standard Facebook analytics were used to determine the number of views, total minutes viewed, average video watch time, and audience retention. Engagement score was calculated as the total number of interactions (likes, shares, and comments) divided by total number of followers (N=1437), expressed as a percentage. RESULTS The 36 live events averaged 17 minutes and 32 seconds in duration. Total minutes viewed by all 36 videos was 38 hours 43 minutes and 12 seconds. Viewers spent an average of 23 seconds watching each piece of video content. Audience retention at the halfway point for each video was 16%. After adjusting for video length, research presentations and promotional videos had the highest retention score. Events that included audience participation had higher retention scores compared to events without audience participation. CONCLUSIONS The use of live community events showed adequate levels of engagement from participants. A view time of 23 secs, on average per video, suggests that short, informational videos engage viewers and is consistent with an “advertorial” approach to using videos as an event teaser for health and research information. Live community events on Facebook can be an effective method of advancing health promotion and CTS content, however certain types of events have more impact on engagement than others. This project found that research presentations had the highest engagement followed by panels while public health communications had the least engagement.