Intoxicated on Twitter : the role of social media in the marketing of alcohol

Excessive consumption of alcohol constitutes a global health problem. Despite efforts to promote safe drinking, spending on pro-alcohol communications far exceeds spending on safe drinking messages. Social media – like Twitter – represent a new method of organisational communication, but the role of Twitter in the promotion of alcohol, or in the promotion of safe drinking messages, have not been examined. This study compared six Twitter accounts maintained by health advocates with six maintained by alcohol companies. The results show that Twitter is heavily used for interactive pro-alcohol communication. Tweets from alcohol accounts were relatively more visible, more engaging, and more likely to be associated with positive connotations than tweets b health advocates. Implications for promotion of health messages are discussed

Marketing with Twitter : challenges and opportunities

The increasing use of Twitter by businesses has created the challenge of how to measure its effectiveness for marketing communications. Using data based on two years of Twitter activity by leading global brands in the Auto, FMCG and Luxury industries, this chapter presents measures which can be used by practitioners and researchers to assess the effectiveness of marketing communications on Twitter. It discusses the factors that predict consumer engagement with organizational tweets, and different Twitter strategies that have been successfully (and less successfully) used by leading global brands. We also consider the implications for marketing with Twitter, for these and for smaller organizations

Competing voices : marketing and counter-marketing alcohol on Twitter

Excessive alcohol consumption constitutes a global health problem, and despite increasing efforts to promote safe drinking, spending on alcohol advertising far outweighs spending on safe-drinking messages. Twitter represents a new channel for social marketing, but its use to promote safe drinking has not been examined. In this study, six Twitter accounts maintained by advocates of safe drinking and/or abstinence were compared with six accounts maintained by alcohol companies using a mixed-method design. The Twitter accounts of alcohol companies were followed by more people, and their tweets were more likely to use interactive features such as hashtags, to be forwarded to others, and to be associated with positive stimuli, suggesting greater interactivity and influence than prohealth Twitter messages. The results suggest social marketers may benefit from adopting the practices of for-profit marketers to increase the visibility of, engagement with, and influence of their tweets

Promotion of alcohol on Twitter

The president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) recently expressed concern about the use of social media by alcohol companies, and one Facebook study found “tens of thousands of alcohol-related Pages, Applications, Events, and Groups”. Twitter provides another social media channel to promote alcohol, particularly to young adults, the heaviest users of Twitter. Although Australian research is limited, United States data show that 26% of people aged 18–29 years use Twitter, almost double the rate of those aged 30–49 years (14%). Given the strong association between alcohol advertising and consumption, such promotion is likely to increase the public health costs associated with excessive alcohol consumption