Persuading People to Do Good: Effects of Facebook Status Updates on Blood Donation Attitudes and Behavior (Preprint)

Abstract

Social media platforms have demonstrated significant potential in influencing behaviors and have become the cornerstone for many public health and agency efforts. Blood collection agencies have embraced social media for the recruitment and retention of donors, as well as to encourage donation-related behaviors. Regular day-to-day social media status updates constitute a large part of the communication strategies employed by blood banks.

Despite the promise of social media for behavior change, the evidence for the persuasive effects of day-to-day social media status updates remains scant, not only in the realm of blood donation, but across all health domains. We therefore examine long term attitudinal and behavioral outcomes to understand the impact of organizations social media page efforts on (health) behavior.

We conducted a randomized controlled trial where we invited all newly registered blood donors to participate in our study to investigate the effects of a blood bank's Facebook page on donation attitudes and behavior. Participants (N = 1,891) were randomized to either the experimental or the control group. Participants were randomly assigned either to follow a blood bank's Facebook page or not. This 2 (new Facebook followers, non-Facebook follower) x 2 (pre-measure, post-measure) mixed design with an additional observational arm (current Facebook followers, N = 415) varied between and within participants and results were measured at two and twelve months after participation.

After one year, no interaction effects (group x time) for attitudinal variables were found (attitude towards blood donation; intention to donate; attitude towards blood bank; warmth; competence; donorship contemplation; contemplating the blood bank. The experiment group was 32% more likely to have made a first donation (OR: 1.32, CI: 1.01-1.73) compared to the control group. Similarly, the experiment group made 12% more whole blood and 17% more total blood donations after one year compared to the control group (resp. IRR:1.12, CI: 1.01-1.24; IRR:1.17, CI: 1.06-1.28).

After one year, no interaction effects (group x time) for attitudinal variables were found (attitude towards blood donation; intention to donate; attitude towards blood bank; warmth; competence; donorship contemplation; contemplating the blood bank. The experiment group was 32% more likely to have made a first donation (OR: 1.32, CI: 1.01-1.73) compared to the control group. Similarly, the experiment group made 12% more whole blood and 17% more total blood donations after one year compared to the control group (resp. IRR:1.12, CI: 1.01-1.24; IRR:1.17, CI: 1.06-1.28).