Kostygina Ganna, Tran Hy, Carter Chandler C, Emery Sherry L
Ganna Kostygina, Principal Research Scientist, Social Data Collaboratory, NORC at the University of Chicago, 55 E Monroe Street, 30th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2025 Aug 17;22(8):1285. doi: 10.3390/ijerph22081285.
Social media promotion of harmful products (e.g., combustible tobacco) poses a public health threat. However, strategies that amplify exposure to and engagement with such content remain understudied. This study aims to characterize strategies boosting cigar, little cigar, and cigarillo (CLCC) marketing visibility, referrals, and engagement on Instagram. Using keyword rules, we collected publicly available CLCC-related Instagram posts from CrowdTangle for a six-year period from August 2016 to October 2021. Posts were categorized as commercial (e.g., posts by tobacco brands or vendors) or organic and were coded for consumer engagement (CE) strategies (e.g., presence of prompts to like/share) using a combination of machine learning methods and human coding. Temporal engagement trends were analyzed using metadata. A total of 320,488 CLCC-related public posts were collected, with 44.6% ( = 142,875) identified as overtly commercial. Of these, 33.5% ( = 47,832) contained CE cues, including discounts and giveaways for tagging peers, liking, commenting, or following CLCC brands and spokesperson/influencers accounts, as well as calls to participate in contests and polls. Overtly commercial CE messages consistently garnered more comments per post and likes per post than non-CE commercial posts. There was a significant upward trend in the rate of comments on CE posts, suggesting growing effectiveness in eliciting user interaction. The proliferation of and high level of engagement with cigar-related promotional messages on Instagram demonstrate the need for public health surveillance and regulation of the evolving strategies promoting CLCC marketing exposure, reach, and engagement on social media.
社交媒体对有害产品（如可燃烟草）的推广构成了公共卫生威胁。然而，增强对此类内容的曝光度和参与度的策略仍未得到充分研究。本研究旨在描述提升雪茄、小雪茄和小烟（CLCC）在照片墙（Instagram）上的营销知名度、推荐量和参与度的策略。我们使用关键词规则，从2016年8月至2021年10月的六年时间里，从CrowdTangle收集了公开可用的与CLCC相关的照片墙帖子。帖子被分类为商业类（如烟草品牌或供应商发布的帖子）或非商业类，并使用机器学习方法和人工编码相结合的方式，对消费者参与（CE）策略（如是否存在点赞/分享提示）进行编码。利用元数据对时间参与趋势进行了分析。共收集到320,488条与CLCC相关的公开帖子，其中44.6%（ = 142,875）被确定为明显的商业帖子。在这些帖子中，33.5%（ = 47,832）包含CE线索，包括为标记同行、点赞、评论或关注CLCC品牌及代言人/有影响力的人账户提供折扣和赠品，以及呼吁参与竞赛和投票。明显的商业CE信息每篇帖子获得的评论和点赞始终多于非CE商业帖子。CE帖子的评论率呈显著上升趋势，表明在引发用户互动方面的效果不断增强。照片墙上与雪茄相关的促销信息的大量传播和高参与度表明，有必要对社交媒体上促进CLCC营销曝光、覆盖面和参与度的不断演变的策略进行公共卫生监测和监管。
