Social media marketing on popular sugar-sweetened beverages Facebook and Twitter pages in Mexico

The great popularity of social media and the development of tailored digital marketing strategies have made young people, specifically children and adolescents, particularly vulnerable to interactive promotion and advertising of foods and beverages high in saturated fat, salt and/or free sugars. The aim of the study was to conduct a content analysis of six popular sugar-sweetened beverage brands in Facebook and Twitter pages in Mexico during 18 months from October 2014 to March 2016. The study examined the amount, target, nature and reach of the marketing practices used by the companies in their social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. Only national pages and accounts were monitored for the brands: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Ades, Sprite, Fanta, Jumex. The content of each post on brand pages was recorded on a biweekly basis and coded across 22 categories. A content analysis coding tool was developed to categorize these marketing features and intercoder reliability was assessed to reduce subjective analysis. Co...