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BackgroundNutrition science is currently facing issues regarding the public’s perception of its credibility, with social media (SM) influencers increasingly becoming a key source for nutrition-related information with high engagement rates. Source credibility and, to an extent, authenticity have been widely studied in marketing and communications but have not yet been considered in the context of nutrition or health communication. Thus, an investigation into the factors that impact perceived source and message credibility and authenticity is of interest to inform health communication on SM. ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the factors that impact message and source credibility (which includes trustworthiness and expertise) or authenticity judgments on SM platforms to better inform nutrition science SM communication best practices. MethodsA total of 6 databases across a variety of disciplines were searched in March 2019. The inclusion criteria were experimental studies, studies focusing on microblogs, studies focusing on healthy adult populations, and studies focusing on either source credibility or authenticity. Exclusion criteria were studies involving participants aged under 18 years and clinical populations, gray literature, blogs, WeChat conversations, web-based reviews, non-English papers, and studies not involving participants’ perceptions. ResultsOverall, 22 eligible papers were included, giving a total of 25 research studies. Among these studies, Facebook and Twitter were the most common SM platforms investigated. The most effective communication style differed depending on the SM platform. Factors reported to impact credibility included language used online, expertise heuristics, and bandwagon heuristics. No papers were found that assessed authenticity. ConclusionsCredibility and authenticity are important concepts studied extensively in the marketing and communications disciplines; however, further research is required in a health context. Instagram is a less-researched platform in comparison with Facebook and Twitter.

Obesity, sedentary behaviour, and poor dietary habits amongst young adults are growing concerns, with this age group being in a worse state of health and nutrition than adolescents and adults. This paper presents the procedures for establishing a new instrument for defining behaviours in relation to healthy lifestyle and food choices amongst young adults (Living and Eating for Health Segments: LEHS). The aim of this paper is to outline the instrument design protocol for external validation and to permit replication in other studies. The instrument design process used a multi-step social marketing instrument design method. This approach has previously been used in designing valid and reliable measures in marketing and consumer research, including social marketing. The protocol established six psycho-behavioural LEHS profiles for young adults. These profiles are: Lifestyle Mavens (15.4%), Aspirational Healthy Eaters (27.5%), Balanced-all Rounders (21.4%), Health Conscious (21.1%), Contemplating Another Day (11.2%), and Blissfully Unconcerned (3.4%). Each of these profiles provided insights into psycho-behavioural characteristics that can be used in designing apposite social media social marketing campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health promoters have been unable to reach and engage people on social media (SM) to the extent that food industry brands and lifestyle personalities have. The objective of this study was to identify the SM post strategies associated with higher engagement in nutrition and food-related posts using a retrospective content analysis. The six most engaging posts from both Facebook and Instagram's 10 most successful nutrition and food-related accounts were analysed across four fields. Subjective and objective post strategies were coded on 736 posts, and associations with engagement were explored using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO). Lifestyle personalities recorded the highest absolute engagement, while health promoters recorded the highest engagement relative to follower count. Strategies associated with higher Facebook engagement included using hashtags and prompting engagement through announcements, while on Instagram, higher engagement was associated with higher caption counts, providing health information links, prompting engagement through strategies that require an action, and using humorous strategies. Strategies associated with lower Instagram engagement included reposted content, general encouragement to eat strategies, encouragement to exercise strategies, not inducing any emotion/hedonic sensations, and providing a negative tone. Health promoters should adapt SM posts to the different SM platforms and utilise strategies associated with higher engagement to engage with their audience on SM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]