Communication about the Covid-19 vaccine through TikTok: the results of an infodemiology study

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.