Fostering mask-wearing with virality metrics and social media literacy: evidence from the U.S. and Korea.

Although social media can pose threats to the public health by spreading misinformation and causing confusion, they can also provide wider access to health information and opportunities for health surveillance. The current study investigates the ways in which preventive health behaviors and norms can be promoted on social media by analyzing data from surveys and experiments conducted in the U.S. and South Korea. Survey results suggest that the pathway from social media use for COVID-19 information to mask-wearing behavior through mask-wearing norms emerges only among individuals with strong perceived social media literacy in the U.S. Experimental findings show that wear-a-mask campaign posts on social media foster mask-wearing norms and behavioral intention when they come with large (vs. small) virality metrics (e.g., Likes, shares) in both the U.S. and South Korea. Additionally, American users are more willing to engage with posts that come with supportive (vs. mixed) comments by Liking, sharing and commenting. The results highlight the need to cultivate social media literacy and opportunities for exploiting social media virality metrics for promoting public health norms and behaviors.

The infinity vaccine war: linguistic regularities and audience engagement of vaccine debate on Twitter

Purpose: As public health professionals strive to promote vaccines for inoculation efforts, fervent anti-vaccination movements are marshaling against it. This study is motived by a need to better understand the online discussion around vaccination. The authors identified the sentiments, emotions and topics of pro- and anti-vaxxers' tweets, investigated their change since the pandemic started and further examined the associations between these content features and audiences' engagement. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a snowball sampling method, data were collected from the Twitter accounts of 100 pro-vaxxers (266,680 tweets) and 100 anti-vaxxers (248,425 tweets). The authors are adopting a zero-shot machine learning algorithm with a pre-trained transformer-based model for sentiment analysis and structural topic modeling to extract the topics. And the authors use the hurdle negative binomial model to test the relationships among sentiment/emotion, topics and engagement. Findings: In general, pro-vaxxers used more positive tones and more emotions of joy in their tweets, while anti-vaxxers utilized more negative terms. The cues of sadness predominantly encourage retweets across the pro- and anti-vaccine corpus, while tweets amplifying the emotion of surprise are more attention-grabbing and getting more likes. Topic modeling of tweets yields the top 15 topics for pro- and anti-vaxxers separately. Among the pro-vaxxers' tweets, the topics of "Child protection” and "COVID-19 situation” are positively predicting audiences' engagement. For anti-vaxxers, the topics of "Supporting Trump,” "Injured children,” "COVID-19 situation,” "Media propaganda” and "Community building” are more appealing to audiences. Originality/value: This study utilizes social media data and a state-of-art machine learning algorithm to generate insights into the development of emotionally appealing content and effective vaccine promotion strategies while combating coronavirus disease 2019 and moving toward a global recovery. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2022-0186 © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

How emotions from content social relevance mediate social media engagement: evidence from European supermarkets during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of consumer engagement with supermarkets' social media accounts. Drawing on regulatory fit theory and social sharing of emotions theory, the authors test if the content posted on the social media brand pages of supermarkets dealing with a topic of high social relevance, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulates social media consumer engagement and if and how the engagement is mediated by the arousal of positive and negative emotions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors retrieved data from the Facebook accounts of the top 20 European supermarkets identified in the Deloitte 2020 Global Powers of Retailing report during the first wave of the pandemic from 1 March to 30 June 2020, collecting a sample of 2,524 posts from 8 different countries. After a content analysis to classify COVID-19 content, the authors applied the Baron and Kenny (1986) methodology to verify the hypothesised relationships.FindingsThe findings highlight a positive direct relationship between the social relevance of a topic (COVID-19) and social media consumer engagement mediated by the arousal of positive and negative emotions.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the earliest empirical research using Facebook data to investigate the role of the social relevance of content as an antecedent of social media consumer engagement with a specific focus on supermarkets. The paper contributes to the stream of social media literature investigating the antecedents of social media engagement behaviour, exploring the role of topics' choice and aroused emotions, which to date are both under-investigated.

Characterizing discourses about COVID-19 vaccines on Twitter: a topic modeling and sentiment analysis approach.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based health communication is crucial for facilitating vaccine-related knowledge and addressing vaccine hesitancy. To that end, it is important to understand the discourses about COVID-19 vaccination and attend to the publics' emotions underlying those discourses. METHODS: We collect tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines from March 2020 to March 2021. In total, 304,292 tweets from 134,015 users are collected. We conduct a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modeling analysis and a sentiment analysis to analyze the discourse themes and sentiments. RESULTS: This study identifies seven themes of COVID-19 vaccine-related discourses. Vaccine advocacy (24.82%) is the most widely discussed topic about COVID-19 vaccines, followed by vaccine hesitancy (22.29%), vaccine rollout (12.99%), vaccine facts (12.61%), recognition for healthcare workers (12.47%), vaccine side effects (10.07%), and vaccine policies (4.75%). Trust is the most salient emotion associated with COVID-19 vaccine discourses, followed by anticipation, fear, joy, sadness, anger, surprise, and disgust. Among the seven topics, vaccine advocacy tweets are most likely to receive likes and comments, and vaccine fact tweets are most likely to receive retweets. CONCLUSIONS: When talking about vaccines, publics' emotions are dominated by trust and anticipation, yet mixed with fear and sadness. Although tweets about vaccine hesitancy are prevalent on Twitter, those messages receive fewer likes and comments than vaccine advocacy messages. Over time, tweets about vaccine advocacy and vaccine facts become more dominant whereas tweets about vaccine hesitancy become less dominant among COVID-19 vaccine discourses, suggesting that publics become more confident about COVID-19 vaccines as they obtain more information.

Relations of Adolescent Knowledge of COVID-19, Social Media Engagement, and Experiences During Quarantine/Lockdown with Well-Being.

This study investigated the relations of adolescent COVID-19 knowledge, quarantine/lockdown experiences, and social media use with indices of their psychosocial adjustment. The sample consisted of 215 adolescents from throughout the United States, with adolescents ranging from ages 14 to 17. Better knowledge of COVID-19 was related to lower loneliness, stress, anxiety, depression, and fear of missing out (FoMO). Higher parent-reported restrictions during quarantine were associated with these difficulties as well. Further, the lowest anxiety was reported for adolescents with good COVID-19 knowledge who also checked social media relatively less frequently. The findings point to the importance of accurate information about COVID-19 for adolescents and the impact of quarantine/lockdown experiences on their perceived emotional and social adjustment.

The Green Frontier of Mobile Applications in Improving Recycling Consumers' Behavior

In this article, we provide a new insight into overcoming resistance to emerging green technologies through mobile app users' environmental engagement. The use of a mobile recycling application is evaluated with regard to its media richness with a sample of 12 539 users in Italy. The research is developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when users have become more environmentally conscious and aware of plastic pollution. This time period has also seen an increase in the use of mobile applications, which provide social engagement and other benefits. Although it has encouraged new research on recycling behavior and how environmental messages are spread, as far as we know, no research has included a specific technology, such as mobile applications. Through the lens of consumer social media engagement behavior, it has emerged that media richness has a positive correlation with user engagement and recycling behavior. Theoretically, the research offers a novel technological tool worthy of further exploration in the fields of management and engineering. New practical insights are offered in terms of best practices for strengthening the relationships between companies and their clients. As users become more accustomed to social technologies, those technologies may help to establish responsible consumption patterns.

How emotions from content social relevance mediate social media engagement: evidence from European supermarkets during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of consumer engagement with supermarkets' social media accounts. Drawing on regulatory fit theory and social sharing of emotions theory, the authors test if the content posted on the social media brand pages of supermarkets dealing with a topic of high social relevance, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulates social media consumer engagement and if and how the engagement is mediated by the arousal of positive and negative emotions. Design/methodology/approach The authors retrieved data from the Facebook accounts of the top 20 European supermarkets identified in the Deloitte 2020 Global Powers of Retailing report during the first wave of the pandemic from 1 March to 30 June 2020, collecting a sample of 2,524 posts from 8 different countries. After a content analysis to classify COVID-19 content, the authors applied the Baron and Kenny (1986) methodology to verify the hypothesised relationships. Findings The findings highlight a positive direct relationship between the social relevance of a topic (COVID-19) and social media consumer engagement mediated by the arousal of positive and negative emotions. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the earliest empirical research using Facebook data to investigate the role of the social relevance of content as an antecedent of social media consumer engagement with a specific focus on supermarkets. The paper contributes to the stream of social media literature investigating the antecedents of social media engagement behaviour, exploring the role of topics' choice and aroused emotions, which to date are both under-investigated.

Consumer Social Media Engagement with Video Ad in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The main objective of this article is to analyze the narrative of an advertising video in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic through a utilitarian (informativeness) and hedonic (playfulness) perspective and evaluate its consequences on brand engagement. In this article, we propose a quantitative approach based on structural equation models. The questionnaire was disseminated in April 2020, and 235 valid responses were obtained and analyzed using the software AMOS v26. The results confirmed the adjustment of the data to the conceptual model established and that empathy with the content in advertising videos has a mediating effect on playfulness and informativeness effects in brand engagement in social networks during COVID-19 pandemic. Our study analyses the narrative of an advertising video in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic through a utilitarian (informativeness) and hedonic (playfulness) perspective and evaluates its consequences on brand engagement. Despite the existence of several studies on advertising, its relationship with brand engagement is still poorly studied in the literature, especially in the pandemic period. This work demonstrates the importance of empathy with video as important factor in digital brand engagement, even in times of crisis.

Canadian COVID-19 Crisis Communication on Twitter: Mixed Methods Research Examining Tweets from Government, Politicians, and Public Health for Crisis Communication Guiding Principles and Tweet Engagement.

To foster trust on social media during a crisis, messages should implement key guiding principles, including call to action, clarity, conversational tone, compassion and empathy, correction of misinformation, and transparency. This study describes how crisis actors used guiding principles in COVID-19 tweets, and how the use of these guiding principles relates to tweet engagement. Original, English language tweets from 10 federal level government, politician, and public health Twitter accounts were collected between 11 March 2020 and 25 January 2021 (n = 6053). A 60% random sample was taken (n = 3633), and the tweets were analyzed for guiding principles. A tweet engagement score was calculated for each tweet and logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the relationship between guiding principles and tweet engagement. Overall, the use of guiding principles was low and inconsistent. Tweets that were written with compassion and empathy, or conversational tone were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Across all guiding principles, tweets from politicians and public health were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Using a combination of guiding principles was associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Crisis actors should consistently use relevant guiding principles in crisis communication messages to improve message engagement.

#NotHolidayButDistance Education: a study on social media use for K-12 education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This study aims to explore Twitter posts of Turkish government agencies and the public under a specific hashtag, #NotHolidayButDistanceEducation, specifically related to online distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a thematic analysis on 22,547 original tweets posted by 6,970 users during the first month of online distance education in Turkish K-12 schools. Based on like and retweet counts, the study further explored the extent of stakeholders’ engagement with the observed themes. Findings: The findings showed that government agencies and citizens used Twitter to provide technical and psychological support, appreciate and motivate stakeholders, demonstrate sample distance education activities, share information and offer suggestions about the ongoing online distance education. It was also observed that the hashtag has been used for expressing negative views about online distance education and for political purposes. A positive relationship was found between social media engagement and providing technical support or sharing information for online distance education. Practical implications: This study highlights the role of social media in providing practical and emotional support to education stakeholders in times of crisis. Thus, governments can use social media to provide evidence-based psychological and physical health support to their citizens during a pandemic. Social media can serve to improve education practices in schools through the interactions between the public and policymakers. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study can be considered unique because it demonstrates the civic use of social media for educational crisis management. This study highlights the influence of social media in educational policy and practice development in the contemporary era. © 2022, Ismail Celik, Muhterem Dindar and Hanni Muukkonen.

Social Media Impact Through Collaborative Relationships in Covid-19 Crisis: A Case Study of McDonald's BTS Meal

The global economy has been greatly impacted by Covid-19. As a result, McDonald's devised a plan to form a partnership with BTS and make a collaborative product that is BTS Meal. The strategy used by McDonald's is market development. The purpose of this study is to learn about the most important aspects of active social media engagement among followers of a food and beverage sales organization, as well as the impact of social media engagement rate on new product sales. The research provides empirical evidence that highly engaged social media posts boost firm performance by increasing sales. Furthermore, the study provides a formula for success by utilizing text mining strategies to determine the most effective use of social media channels. Data collection was carried out by conducting literature studies, observations through McDonald's Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok, data analysis, and a calculation of the engagement rate. The BTS Meal, that will be available in 49 countries, will offer a McDonald's menu and signature dipping sauce inspired by McDonald's South Korean sauces. This research is expected to show how the exposure generated from the high engagement rate can be used as an impact on McDonald's sales and brand in the future. © IEOM Society International.

Is nothing like before? COVID-19–evoked changes to tourism destination social media communication

The outbreak of COVID-19 has boosted the significance of social media for tourism destinations. Therefore, this study investigates how and to what extent the pandemic has changed tourism destination communication on social media and consumers' social media engagement. Using data collected from 1136 Facebook posts by 85 Austrian tourism destinations, the authors compared three different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. pre-COVID, lockdown, post-lockdown). Results show that 1) the use of linguistic text features of social media content has changed (i.e. more expressions of uncertainty, confidence, emotionality, more first-person storytellers, greater text length, and less specificity);2) consumers’ social media engagement, measured as likes, shares, and comments, has increased;and 3) textual features explain changes in social media engagement rates only to a limited degree. Based on these findings, the study provides recommendations for destinations on how to design effective social media content during crises. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Batting Outside the Field: Examining E-Engagement Behaviors of IPL Fans

This study examines the relationship between cognitive awareness and perceived knowledge of sports fans' social media engagement behaviors. Data were collected through an online survey of 236 adults from India who identified as Indian Premier League (IPL) fans. The findings of the study suggest that perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness of sports are precursors to social media engagement behaviors of sports fans. Further, sports fandom mediates links between perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness with social media engagement. The findings hold special significance for contemporary COVID scenarios because physical engagement is being substituted by digital engagement.