Remission Possible: Determining the Impact of Targeted Social Media Campaigns to Promote Type 2 Diabetes Remission...

The possibility of achieving type 2 diabetes (T2D) remission is a relatively new concept and remains unknown to most people affected by T2D. To evaluate the impact (including reach, engagement, conversation rate, cost-per-click, and website engagement) of paid, targeted social media advertising featuring inspiring stories of persons with lived experience (PWLE) and still-frame advertisements as knowledge mobilization strategies to increase awareness of T2D remission.

In collaboration with PWLE, we developed the "Remission Possible" social media campaign, consisting of still-frame images and storytelling video advertisements, to highlight T2D remission and direct interested users to a website (Diabetesremission.ca) that explains the concept and provides evidence-informed resources.

During the paid social media campaigns, we reached 235,561 unique individuals (70% female, most being >45 years old), resulting in 6,250 people accessing our website, with an average conversation rate of 2.7% and a cost-per-click of $0.36. Of these, 1,135 individuals took meaningful action (e.g. downloading material). Compared with organic posts, paid advertisements increased visitors to our website (organic posts: 10±9 users per day; paid posts: 180±72 users per day; p=0.0001; D=2.08), with no difference in the time spent on the website (7.0±6.6 min) for visitors from paid vs organic posts (p=0.576). Still-frame images designed to evoke stronger emotions decreased the cost-per-click compared with neutral advertisements ($0.29 vs $0.41). Storytelling videos were similarly effective, especially when using a short vertical format (Reels).

Targeted social media advertising seems to be an effective way to promote T2D remission awareness among potentially interested individuals, while also demonstrating a favorable cost per click.