Social Media in Population Health

Social Media and Marketing

The health industry is increasingly turning to low-cost social media and marketing to improve individual, community, and national health practices. Confusion often exists regarding the differentiation between social media and social marketing. Social media is the software or platform through which people engage, whereas social marketing is the campaign or intervention developed to engage populations by using social media. Platforms for social media are continually changing, but popular examples include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Qzone, and Pinterest. Social media platforms has provided a low-cost space to share health information, track health, and build support networks. Social marketing campaigns utilize these platforms for widespread distribution of educational information or simple public health action points. Surveillance can be conducted using both social media and marketing.

The evidence surrounding the use of social media and marketing to promote health is rapidly mounting (Gabarron, 2018 et al., 2018). Gough et al. (2017) found that horrifying or humorous population health messages resulted in greater engagement, while information-based messages were more likely to be shared. Both types of messages positively impact outcomes (Yoon, 2018).

References

Gabarron, E., Bradway, M., Fernandez-Luque, L., Chomutare, T., Hansen, A. H., Wynn, R., & Årsand, E. (2018). Social media for health promotion in diabetes: Study protocol for a participatory public health intervention design. BMC Health ServicesRresearch, 18(1), 414. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-317

Gough, A., Hunter, R., Ajao, O., Jurek, A., McKeown, G., Hong, J. Barrett, E. Ferguson, M. McElwee, G., McCarthy, M., & Kee, F. (2017). Tweet for behavior change: Using social media for the dissemination of public health messages. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 3(1). E14. https://doi.org/10.2196/publichealth.6313

Hagg, E., Dahinten, V. S., & Currie, L. M. (2018). The emerging use of social media for health-related purposes in low and middle-income countries: A scoping review. International journal of medical informatics, 115, 92-105. https://doi.org/0.1016/j.ijmedinf.2018.04.010

Lister, C., Royne, M., Payne, E., Cannon, B. Hansen, C., & Barnes, M. (2015). The laugh model: Reframing and rebranding public health through social media. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2245-2251. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302669

Nour, M. M., Rouf, A. S., & Allman-Farinelli, M. (2018). Exploring young adult perspectives on the use of gamification and social media in a smartphone platform for improving vegetable intake. Appetite, 120, 547-556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.10.016

Rideout, V., & Fox, S. (2018). Digital health practices, social media use, and mental well-being among teens and young adults in the US [PDF]. Well Being Trust.

https://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/publications/1093

Yoon, H. J. (2018). Using humour to increase effectiveness of shameful health issue advertising: testing the effects of health worry level. International Journal of Advertising, 37(6), 914-936. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2017.1340864