Effects of Paid Advertising on Reach and Online Engagement with Anti-tobacco Social Media Sites

background: Previous research indicate that state tobacco control social media sites may improve key metrics (e.g., number of site followers, engagement with messages) as a result of targeted paid advertising.   In January 2015, Tobacco Free Florida (TFF) launched a new online tobacco prevention campaign - thefactsnow.com. The purpose of this study is to assess the range of effects produced by paid advertising on 1) campaign reach to the target audience and 2) online engagement through TFF sites including Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. 

methods: Paid advertising data and weekly site metrics (e.g., followers, reposts, video views) for all campaign sites are examined from the campaign launch through September 2015.   

results:  Initial launch data suggest that the use of paid advertising on Tumblr led to a seven-fold increase within the first week of advertising.  Similarly, TFF’s @thefactsnow began tweeting on Jan. 7, 2015 and had 1,744 followers within one month; users retweeted 43% of campaign messages.  Facebook page likes exceeded n=3500 within the first month. Results over the study period include modeling of the size of the effects for key metrics across each social media sites (e.g., elasticities to estimate effects).   

discussion: The majority of state tobacco control programs currently use social media to disseminate tobacco cessation and prevention messages.  These data have may help state tobacco control programs in determining the most effective strategies to reach and engage users of social media by target audience.