How is social media used to promote youth wellbeing? : an examination of Twitter use among national mental health organisations

Many young people experience considerable health and/or mental health issues. Three Australian initiatives were established to address these – ReachOut.com, headspace, and the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre (YAWCRC). Each organisation promotes youth wellbeing, adopting a participatory approach to meet this aim. This is suggested by their use of social media, like Twitter. This chapter explores their use of Twitter by complementing Twitter analytics with an analysis of 600 tweets, randomly selected over 12 months. Findings suggest the organisations did not sue Twitter in the same way. Despite such variation, an analysis of frequent hashtags suggests they primarily used this feature for self-promotion, and they primarily appealed to other not-for-profit organisations. However, an analysis of randomly selected tweets indicates that twitivity alone may not be synonymous with user engagement. Although YAWCRC issued the most tweets, it attracted the lowest average of retweets by, and favorites from fellow users; this may be partly due to its limited follower-base. This highlights the importance of building a follower-base to increase the likelihood of attracting favourable responses from fellow users. Notwithstanding replies, most features were positively correlated with retweeting by, and favorites from fellow users. The pattern that emerged makes a strong case for strategic, rather than haphazard twitivity. Although the organisations used Twitter to promote youth wellbeing, prevention was a particular theme that appeared to resonate with fellow users. Collectively, these finds have implications for practitioners and researchers. For practitioners, they demonstrate the need for strategic twitivity. For researchers, they provide a platform for future research on: how the use of particular feature shapes user perceptions of, and engagement with these organisations; how the use of these features can promote youth wellbeing; and how social media can be used to improve youth wellbeing.