Mental health message appeals and audience engagement: Evidence from Australia

Abstract

Social media platforms are increasingly used to disseminate social marketing messages about mental health and wellbeing. This study presents a range of message appeals used in social media enabled mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement. A content analysis of 65 organisation-generated YouTube videos about depression and anxiety and stigma reduction was conducted. The most utilised message appeal was Sorrow, followed by Affiliation, Ease/Convenience, Hope, Humour, Guilt/Shame, Heroic/Successful, and Fear. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement in terms of the number of likes, comments, and shares. The analysis revealed that Sorrow is the most useful message appeal for generating audience comments. However, Sorrow is negatively associated with the number of likes and shares. The results suggest that mental health promotion messages may engage a larger audience through Affiliation and Hope as they have a positive impact on the number of shares. This could, in effect, turn audiences into vocal advocates for mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages.

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“…In both commercial and social marketing, message appeal is often manipulated to influence consumer’s emotions and generate a greater persuasive capacity [ 16 ]. There is limited research published in health and medicine that considers the effectiveness of varying message appeals over SM [ 16 ].…”

“…In both commercial and social marketing, message appeal is often manipulated to influence consumer’s emotions and generate a greater persuasive capacity [ 16 ]. There is limited research published in health and medicine that considers the effectiveness of varying message appeals over SM [ 16 ]. However, those published emphasise the effectiveness of positive emotional appeals to increase engagement with public health messages [ 59 , 60 ].…”

“…Originally, the questionnaire had a broad scope and included questions relating to communication objectives, SM behaviour, and physical activity. However, based on the findings of our scoping review [ 28 ] these analyses focus only on the results relating to trustworthiness, authenticity, and message appeals [ 16 , 37 , 38 ].…”

“…Familiarity and likeability of the source was first measured based on the Instagram profile (measured using a validated semantic differential scale, each with five items) [ 39 ]. The main outcomes were post trustworthiness [ 27 ] and post authenticity [ 31 ] assessed using validated scales, as well as perceived message appeal used in the Instagram post (measured by eight individual items on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’; affiliation, hope, humour, heroic, convenience, guilt, sorrow, fear) [ 16 ]. Participants answered questions related to their own nutrition knowledge, healthy eating behaviours, and quality of life, also assessed via statements on a five-point Likert scale [ 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ].…”

“…In the existing post-truth era ( Appendix A ), experts are often less highly regarded by young adults and emotional message appeals ( Appendix A ) are typically the most effective methods of communication [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Previous research has detailed the effectiveness of positive emotional message appeals, such as humour ( Appendix A ), as a way to increase engagement on SM [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. On Instagram, young adults are surrounded by the pressure of idyllic lifestyles, frequently being exposed to accounts promoting ‘#fitspiration’ and ‘#cleaneating’ encouraging self-comparison and negative self-image [ 19 , 20 ].…”