The persuasiveness of vaccine focused social media posts to parents of adolescents

TL;DR

This study shows that vaccine-related social media posts are more persuasive when they come from trusted sources and include stories for hesitant parents.

Contribution

The study identifies how different post features influence vaccine decision-making among mothers with varying levels of hesitancy.

Findings

Trusted sources like the AAP are most persuasive in vaccine-related social media posts.

Vaccine hesitant parents find narrative posts more persuasive than statistical ones.

Including hyperlinks increases the persuasiveness of vaccine-related messages.

Abstract

Social media and online health information play an important role in vaccine decision making. Our aim is to examine the persuasiveness of social media posts about vaccines for mothers of youth by vaccine hesitancy.

A U.S. national survey of mothers of adolescents aged nine to 17 in 2023 assessed persuasiveness of vaccine-related social media posts. Persuasiveness dimensions included information source, presence of a hyperlink, vaccine type, and message type. A fractional-factorial design identified nine posts/scenarios, varying across the four dimensions. Respondents rated the persuasiveness of each from zero to 100. Ratings-based conjoint analysis evaluated relative preferences, translated into importance scores, indicating the influence of each stratified by low, medium, and high vaccine hesitancy.

The 3803 mothers indicated that information source (American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] most preferred; importance score = 57.2) contributed most strongly to persuasiveness, followed by vaccine type (human papillomavirus [HPV] most preferred; importance score = 22.9), then preference for a hyperlink (importance score = 17.1), and a statistical post (importance score = 2.8). Stratified by vaccine hesitancy, the mean persuasiveness across all nine posts/scenarios was significantly different between the groups. All groups reported information source (AAP most preferred) and vaccine type (HPV most preferred) as most persuasive. All preferred hyperlinks, but the higher hesitancy groups found narrative posts more persuasive.

These data highlight the importance of posts directed at parents emanating from trusted sources like the AAP, with hyperlinks to further information. For individuals with vaccine hesitancy, our findings support sharing stories instead of statistical posts.

•Social media posts on vaccination directed should come from trusted sources.•Hyperlinks to further information increase the persuasiveness of the messages.•For vaccine hesitant parents, sharing stories is more persuasive.

Social media posts on vaccination directed should come from trusted sources.

Hyperlinks to further information increase the persuasiveness of the messages.

For vaccine hesitant parents, sharing stories is more persuasive.

Figures