ABSTRACT
Social media are widespread and play a significant role in communicating numerous topics, including those related to health. We conducted a study to analyse the presence of communications on the main social media platforms by the 99 Italian local health authorities (LHAs) and compared the results against those of a previous study conducted in 2018. We also analysed the LHAs' communications on Instagram to identify contents related to information on Covid-19 and its vaccine. The results showed that, at the end of 2021, 91.8% of Italian LHAs were active on at least one of the five platforms investigated (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn), with an absolute growth of 30% compared to 2018. Facebook (79.8%) was the most used platform, followed by YouTube (55.6%), Instagram (43.4%), Twitter (35.4%), and LinkedIn (11.1%). Comparing the absolute percentages observed in 2018 and in 2021, Facebook use grew by 33%, YouTube by 18%, Twitter by 3%, while LinkedIn use remained unchanged. Instagram use grew from 9% to 34% percent, making it the platform with the highest growth rate. Of the total of 1600 Instagram posts examined, 34.1% concerned the Covid- 19 vaccine, 10.6% were related to Covid-19, but did not concern the vaccine, while 55.3% were related to topics other than Covid-19. Covid-19 seems to have led to an increase in the use of social media platforms by the Italian LHAs. Further studies are needed to investigate the role of LHAs in fostering knowledge on Covid-19 and in reducing vaccine hesitancy.
ABSTRACT
Social media are among the most used web platforms, representing an important source of health information for people. We investigated the type of characteristics and engagement rate of 164 TikTok videos related to Covid-19 vaccines (the first 130 videos obtained by searching TikTok with the hashtag #COVIDVaccine, and 34 videos published on the World Health Organization - WHO - TikTok account and related to the same topic). The videos featured in the #COVIDVaccine trend have found significantly higher success than those of the WHO, with an engagement rate that was 4 times higher, with 10 times more views, 52 times more likes, 28 times more comments, and 88 times more shares. The significantly more engaging features are the use of humor, the mention of adverse reactions and a video length shorter than one minute, while the least rewarding ones are the presence of music, the use of animations, and the description of vaccine characteristics. These results confirm that Covid-19 vaccines could be promoted via TikTok by health organizations by using alternative communication strategies.