1. Feasibility and acceptability of social-media delivered interventions

In the study “Investigating the feasibility and acceptability of using Instagram to engage post‑graduate students in a mass communication social media‑based health intervention, #WeeStepsToHealth” we tested a 4-week Instagram-based campaign targeting postgraduate students with posts on physical activity, nutrition and wellbeing.  Engagement metrics (likes, comments) were modest but usable; humorous posts achieved somewhat higher engagement.  Self-reported behaviour changes included a +13.7 % increase in weekly physical activity, +23.3 % increase in consumption of 5+ fruits and vegetables, and +10.3 % increase in reading nutritional labels. Focus-group feedback indicated acceptability of the channel and message, and highlighted the importance of trusted source and message tone (e.g., humour). This suggests that social media platforms like Instagram are feasible for health-promotion campaigns among young adults, though further work is needed to establish efficacy and sustained impact.

2. Young people’s perspectives on social media and wellbeing

In the qualitative work summarised in the “Children should be Seen AND Heard: Adolescents’ views on social media use and subjective well‑being” digest, young people in school settings described both positive and negative impacts of social-media use on their subjective wellbeing.

Positive: Use of social media helped them feel connected to friends, increased mood via humour and funny content.

Negative: Social comparisons (to celebrities, peers) made young people feel worse, and lack of being tagged made some feel excluded; sleep-deprivation from use was also cited.

This work underscores that social media is not unambiguously good or bad; the role of user experience, peer dynamics, platform features and message environment all matter.

3. Message framing, platform dynamics and uptake of public health messages

Our earlier study “Tweet for Behavior Change: Using Social Media for the Dissemination of Public Health Messages” on a campaign via Twitter demonstrated the potential and the challenges of social-media approaches in public health. The campaign delivered messages on skin-cancer prevention, using different framing (shocking images, humorous posts, personal stories).

Findings: Shocking messages produced greater impressions, humorous posts yielded higher engagement, and more informational posts were the ones most shared. But the study also flagged methodological issues: difficulty identifying appropriate control/comparator groups in social media research; representativeness of respondents; contamination across phases.

This work helped establish that message framing matters significantly in social-media health campaigns, and pointed to the need for more rigorous evaluation designs in this space.

4. Wider evidence and implications

Beyond our own studies, meta-analytic work shows that social-media interventions have moderate effects on health-behaviour change, including among populations with health-disparities. For example, one meta-analysis found effect size d ≈ 0.303 among underserved groups.

Another survey of public health practice found that while social media is recognised as important for knowledge translation and engagement, its use for action on social determinants and health equity remains limited in practice.

Collectively, this suggests that social media is a valuable tool, but not a silver bullet—and design, engagement, context, platform choice, message framing and evaluation all require careful attention.

What this means for practice

From our research, several principles emerge for practitioners and researchers using social media for health promotion:

1. Select platforms that align with your target audience’s real use patterns (e.g., Instagram for young adults).
2. Use message framing strategically: humour, memes, relatable tone often increase engagement; shocking or fear-based frames may boost reach but carry risks.
3. Consider trust and source credibility: Young people noted that they engaged better when the message came from a credible or familiar intermediary.
4. Track both engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments) and behaviour/knowledge outcomes (self-report, objective where possible).
5. Understand the risks: social comparison, exclusion, sleep disruption, algorithmic exposure to undesirable content—these are real concerns, especially for younger users.
6. Be realistic: Social-media-based interventions are best seen as complements to broader behaviour-change strategies such as network-based ties, offline support, community components still matter.
7. Build rigorous evaluation into design: Pre-post surveys, focus groups, platform analytics, and where possible controlled comparison groups.