The Impact on Audience Engagement of Coordinating a Public Health Campaign on Antimicrobial Resistance Through a Network of Health Content Creators: Longitudinal Observational Study

TL;DR

This study examined if coordinating health content creators on YouTube during an antimicrobial resistance event increased audience engagement.

Contribution

The study provides empirical evidence on the impact of coordinated social media campaigns by health content creators on audience interactivity.

Findings

Coordinated campaign videos had significantly higher comment counts compared to paired noncoordinated videos.

Campaign videos had significantly higher comment counts compared to creators' average engagement.

The campaign did not increase view counts or like counts significantly.

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant global health threat. Several public health campaigns aimed to raise AMR awareness and inspire related behavioral changes have been delivered in a time-specific, coordinated manner, while others have placed less emphasis on campaign timing. Social media platforms can be leveraged as key vehicles for delivering public health campaigns, particularly by collaborating with health content creators who serve as influential messengers. Increasingly, organizations such as the World Health Organization and TikTok have created health content creator networks; however, the impact of such networks in public health campaigns, especially when delivered in a coordinated, time-specific manner, remains uncertain.

This study aimed to investigate whether mobilizing an established health content creator network to create social media content on the topic of AMR, released in a coordinated, time-specific manner, can have an impact on audience engagement.

We conducted a longitudinal observational study evaluating the effect of a coordinated social media campaign (“Pulse”) on YouTube, delivered by an established health content creator network during an international event on AMR. Members of the network prepared and coordinated the release of AMR-related videos. Engagement analytics were evaluated 6 months after release. The engagement with each campaign video was compared with that for a similar noncoordinated video and with the average engagement of the same creators.

Around the day of the Pulse campaign on September 26, 2024, 18 campaign videos were released across 14 YouTube channels. Compared with paired videos, Pulse videos were not associated with higher view counts (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 0.98, 95% CI 0.44-2.13; P=.95) or like counts (IRR 1.10, 95% CI 0.48-2.41; P=.81) but were associated with significantly higher comment counts (IRR 2.99, 95% CI 1.02-8.52; P=.03). When compared with the creators’ 12-month channel averages, campaign videos had a significantly higher comment count (IRR 15.5, 95% CI 5.5-24.0; P<.001) but no difference in view counts (IRR −82.0, 95% CI −190.3 to 58.5; P=.26) or like counts (IRR −0.50, 95% CI −6.3 to 10.5; P=.93).

Coordinating health content creators to release AMR-related videos on YouTube coinciding with an international AMR event increased audience interactivity but did not enhance reach. This study shows the need to better understand which AMR-specific content factors contribute toward greater traction and to assess audience needs among the wider public to discern how best to harness social media interventions as a tool to improve AMR-related outcomes.