Can Online Incentive Programs Motivate Teens to Take Online Actions That Promote Health?

Background:  Behavior change and learning theory principles have informed the use of incentives to promote health behavior change. While the use of incentive programs in the non-digital world is well documented, whether or not incentive strategies can be replicated in the digital world warrants further investigation. In addition to the unique format, researchers must also understand the impact of anonymity and the lack of face-to-face interaction on the effectiveness of incentives when digital platforms are used. This study explores the use of online incentives to increase the reach of public health messages among youth.

Program background:  “Fight Fire with Fire” was a 6-week online anti-tobacco campaign targeting youth in the alternative music scene. The campaign was launched by two existing tobacco prevention programs that target alternative youth: Blacklist (Nebraska/Utah) and Syke (Virginia). The primary purpose of the campaign was to: 1) Increase brand reach and recognition; 2) Increase exposure and interaction; 3) Increase overall engagement on social media channels. Campaign messages focused on daily tobacco industry spending on advertising and how it targets the alternative music scene. Youth were asked to complete social actions, such as sharing campaign content on Facebook or retweeting messages on Twitter. When teens completed the promoted social actions they were rewarded with points that they could redeem for prizes. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: Evaluation measures for the campaign across social media platforms included the number of social actions completed, increase in Facebook ‘Likes’, Facebook average weekly engagement, Facebook average reach in users per week, increase in Twitter followers, engagement on Twitter (indicates total mentions and retweets), as well as number of YouTube views. The online incentive platform “Fan Fueled” was used. After the campaign, Blacklist had 38 actively engaged participants and increased total Likes on Facebook by 644, Average Weekly Engagement on Facebook increased from 631 to 1,710. Average Weekly Reach on Facebook increased from 4,658 to 48,687, while gaining 38 new Twitter Followers with Twitter Engagement of 123. The promotional video was viewed 14,793 times. During the same campaign duration, Syke had 80 actively engaged participants and increased total Facebook Likes by 774. There was a total of 338 Facebook actions completed including content “Likes”, shares and comments. Average Weekly Engagement increased from 1,152 to 1,512. Average Weekly Reach on Facebook increased from 25,164 to 32,920, while gaining 75 new Twitter Followers with Twitter Engagement of 241. The promotional video was viewed 5,026 times. 

Conclusions:  Results indicate that a digital incentive strategy can be used to spread of health messages among teens. Neither campaign experienced complications due to the online nature of the strategy. These findings align with previous behavior change and marketing theory and practice, indicating incentive strategies are successful in the real world. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  This study suggests that digital incentive strategies on social media may be a useful tool for health campaigns targeting teens. Engaging teens in the process of message dissemination with incentives could be a low-cost way to increase reach and break through the clutter of online media.