title: Exploring how the tobacco industry presents and promotes itself in social media.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The commercial potential of social media is utilized by tobacco manufacturers and vendors for tobacco promotion online. However, the prevalence and promotional strategies of pro-tobacco content in social media are still not widely understood.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The goal of this study was to reveal what is presented by the tobacco industry, and how it promotes itself, on social media sites.
  
  
  METHODS
  The top 70 popular cigarette brands are divided into two groups according to their retail prices: group H (brands with high retail prices) and group L (brands with low retail prices). Three comprehensive searches were conducted on Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube respectively using the top 70 popular cigarette brands as keywords. We identified tobacco-related content including history and culture, product features, health warnings, home page of cigarette brands, and Web-based tobacco shops. Furthermore, we examined the promotional strategies utilized in social media.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to the data collected from March 3, 2014 to March 10, 2014, 43 of the 70 representative cigarette brands had created 238 Facebook fan pages, 46 cigarette brands were identified in Wikipedia, and there were over 120,000 pro-tobacco videos on YouTube, associated with 61 cigarette brands. The main content presented on the three social media websites differs significantly. Wikipedia focuses on history and culture (67%, 32/48; P<.001). Facebook mainly covers history and culture (37%, 16/43; P<.001) and major products (35%, 15/43), while YouTube focuses on the features of major tobacco products (79%, 48/61; P=.04) and information about Web-based shops (49%, 30/61; P=.004). Concerning the content presented by groups H and L, there is no significant difference between the two groups. With regard to the promotional strategies used, sales promotions exist extensively in social media. Sales promotion is more prevalent on YouTube than on the other two sites (64%, 39/61 vs 35%, 15/43; P=.004). Generally, the sale promotions of higher-cost brands in social media are more prevalent than those of lower-cost brands (55%, 16/29 vs 7%, 1/14; P<.001 for Facebook; 78%, 28/36 vs 44%, 11/25; P=.005 for YouTube).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The prevalence of cigarette brands in social media allows more pro-tobacco information to be accessed by online users. This dilemma indicates that corresponding regulations should be established to prevent tobacco promotion in social media.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Yunji
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8381-8187
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Xiaolong
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0405-5458
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Daniel Dajun
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9046-222X
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Xingshe
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-2174
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Scott James
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5804-3543
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Leischow
authors.forename: Wingyan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5102-5844
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chung
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing / Q000379:methods*; D061108:Social Media; D019460:Tobacco Industry; D062789:Tobacco Products / Q000191:economics; D014743:Videotape Recording
keywords: cigarette brands; promotional strategy; social media; tobacco control; tobacco promotion