Clinician voices and facts drive vaccine-related social media engagement
Key Takeaways
- Straightforward factual tone increased likelihood of liking, sharing, or commenting compared with humorous framing, which reduced engagement odds overall despite potential niche appeal.
- Local institutional attribution (state health departments, public universities) outperformed national agencies and unsourced accounts, underscoring source credibility as a primary engagement determinant.
New research highlights the role of a factual tone, credible sources, and clinician voices in vaccine-related social media.
Factual content, credible sources, and clinical voices drive vaccine-related social media engagement more than creative or humorous approaches, according to a cross-sectional study published in
University of California researchers led by Lucía Abascal Miguel, M.D., Ph.D., surveyed 243 adults in California—most of whom reported heavy social media use, with nearly 94% logging on daily—using an experimental approach that showed participants pairs of vaccine-related posts and asked which they would be more likely to like, share, or comment on.
“The findings from this study will inform the design of a social media-based study on COVID-19 and influenza vaccination messaging in California, evaluating the association of such messaging with vaccine intentions and uptake,” the authors wrote. “We will also share our insights with key stakeholders to enhance public health messaging strategies. Assessing audience preferences prior to campaign design may improve engagement and strengthen vaccination-related knowledge.”
Posts with a factual tone significantly outperformed those with a humorous framing. While humor has shown some effectiveness in niche subgroups, it did not generalize to the broader sample and was associated with substantially lower engagement odds overall.
"Our findings suggest that while humor may resonate in specific contexts, survey participants favored straightforward, factual information," the authors wrote.
Source credibility also drove preferences. Posts attributed to local public health institutions such as state health departments or public universities were favored over those from national bodies like the CDC or from unsourced accounts. Messenger selection was also among the study's notable findings. Posts featuring health care professionals or older and middle-aged adults outperformed those with mixed-age or younger messengers.
Content tied to specific diseases—particularly COVID-19 and influenza—was preferred over general vaccination posts. The researchers noted that specificity may make messages feel more relevant, especially when tied to familiar or currently circulating diseases.
“In this cross-sectional study of adults in California, participants preferred vaccination-related social media posts that were factual, sourced from public health organizations, and featured health care professionals or older adults,” the authors wrote. “Posts focused on COVID-19 and influenza were more likely to be selected than general vaccination messages, while a humorous tone was less preferred. These findings illustrate how experimental preference-based methods can inform the design of digital public health messaging.”
Most participants said they preferred visual content, but the specific type of imagery (photographs versus illustrations or cartoons) did not significantly influence engagement preferences.
The researchers acknowledged that stated preferences in a survey may not perfectly reflect real-world engagement behavior, and the relatively small California-based sample limits the ability to draw conclusions about subgroups or demographic-specific preferences.
Still, the authors emphasized the stakes. "Given the volume of vaccine information, including misinformation, on social media, it is critical that public health messaging is evidence-based and resonates with intended audiences," they concluded.
