New research from the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC) finds that social media advertising can be a cost-effective way of engaging older people in deprived communities with vaccination.

Previous research has found that older people are less likely to use social media than younger generations. As evidence suggests that younger people can influence the health behaviour of older relatives offline, ILC set out to test whether social media could be used to engage older people via their younger relatives using a large-scale targeted social media advertising campaign.

After reaching over a million people and generating over 5 million impressions, ILC’s findings show that despite popular stereotypes to the contrary, targeting older users directly on social media is a more effective way of encouraging them to get their jabs than engaging them indirectly through younger people.

Through these campaigns, ILC were able to cost-effectively encourage marginalised older adults to get their flu jab. For the pneumococcal vaccine, the campaigns had an even greater impact and cost less than a third of the price per booking link click than the flu adverts – most likely because many people had already received the flu vaccine, while the pneumococcal vaccine was relatively unknown.

Based on the success of this campaign, ILC are calling for the Government and NHS to invest more in targeted social media campaigns to improve uptake among those who need their jabs most, and those who are least likely to get them otherwise.

To address the lack of awareness on routine vaccinations, ILC also argue the NHS needs to make it easier for people to access information on vaccination and the vaccines themselves, including through offering the vaccine in community pharmacies and creating a single online hub where people can book all routine vaccination appointments.

Sophia Dimitriadis, Senior Economist at ILC and lead researcher on the project, said:

“Social media often gets a bad rep, especially surrounding the disinformation and fake news it can be used to spread. But we’ve shown that social media has huge potential when it comes to immunisation – including for people living in deprived communities, who are typically hard to reach through the traditional healthcare system.

And yet, there is so much untapped potential still left to unlock. Our campaigns generated more engagement and at a cheaper rate than the average healthcare industry advert. Social media should become part of our arsenal for promoting and protecting public health.” 

The more campaigns like this we see, the better understanding we’ll build up of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to using social media in a positive way to increase vaccination uptake. The case isn’t closed.”

Amber Williamson, Founder & CEO of Digital Willow

“It was a challenge and a privilege to be involved in this campaign. We pushed the boundaries using social media as our launchpad during a time when fake health news was high. Yet undeniably, our communications packed a punch. It was fascinating to see just how engaged older citizens of the UK were. For instance, nearly three-quarters of the post comments came from them. Social media is clearly not just for the young.

As they say, prevention is better than cure. And in this case, we showed that it was over 60-times more cost-effective to run the campaign on social media than to cure someone with flu, or a whopping 133 – 453 times cheaper to prevent someone from getting pneumonia. We look forward to seeing more health campaigns communicated this way in the future.”

Dr Daphne Holt, Chair of the Coalition for Life Couse Immunisation (CLCI), added:

“Vaccination is an important health tool which should be used right throughout the life-course. While there are a number of recommended vaccinations for older people, uptake is still low in some communities.
Using social media to engage with adults about vaccination is a cost-effective way to encourage uptake of the flu and pneumococcal jab and has the potential to transform uptake.

Notes

Download the report here.

This research project has been supported by a grant from the Vaccine Confidence Fund as part of a $7 million investment from Facebook and Merck, aimed at boosting vaccination confidence through social media. ILC partnered with social media agency Digital Willow to design and test these campaigns. Find out more about the project here.

We launched this report at a webinar on Tuesday, 15 March 2022 at 2.00pm GMT, where a panel of experts responded to the findings, including Prof Andrew Pollard, Chair of Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). Watch a recording of the event here.