Abstract
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) provides pertinent information about cancer prevention, treatment, and research advancements that is considered objective and accurate. NCI’s presence on social media is an example of a growing effort in promoting and facilitating audience engagement with evidence-based information about health and cancer. However, it is unknown what strategies are most effective for engaging audiences via this communication platform. To evaluate this important question, we analyzed data on posts, associated comments, and meta-data from official NCI Facebook page between July 2010 and February 2015 (end of data collection). Results show that audience engagement is associated with the format of cancer-related social media posts. Specifically, posts with photos received significantly more likes, comments, and shares than videos, links, and status updates. The findings have important implications for how social media can be more effectively utilized to promote public engagement with important public health issues.
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The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Research reported in this publication was particially supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number UL1TR001427. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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Strekalova, Y.A., Krieger, J.L. A Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words: Public Engagement with the National Cancer Institute on Social Media. J Canc Educ 32, 155–157 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0901-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0901-5