JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Source credibility, and to an extent, authenticity, have been widely studied in marketing and communications, but have not yet been considered in the context of health communication. Social media influencers are becoming key to digital marketing due to their high engagement rates, thus investigation into the factors that impact perceived source and message credibility and authenticity is of interest to inform health communication on social media.

Objective:

To explore the factors that impact credibility (which includes trustworthiness and expertise) or authenticity judgements on social media platforms.

Methods:

Six databases across health and marketing disciplines were searched during March 2019. Inclusion criteria were experimental studies, studies focusing on microblogs, healthy adult populations, and studies focusing on either source credibility or authenticity. Exclusion criteria were studies of those under 18 years old, clinical populations, grey literature, blogs, online reviews, non-English papers, or those not involving participants’ perceptions.

Results:

Overall 22 eligible papers were included, giving a total of 25 research studies. Among these studies, Facebook and Twitter were the most common social media platforms investigated. The most effective communication style differed depending on the social media platform. Factors reported to impact source credibility included: language used online, expertise heuristics, and bandwagon heuristics. No papers were found that assessed authenticity.

Conclusions:

Credibility and authenticity are important concepts studied extensively in the marketing and communications disciplines, however, further research is required in a health context. Instagram is a less-researched platform in comparison to Facebook and Twitter.