Typology of Tweets and User Engagement Generated by US Companies Involved in the Development of COVID-19 Vaccines

COVID-19 has evoked an unprecedented public health crisis throughout the world. This study conducted a quantitative content analysis of (N=295) Twitter posts generated by four US companies engaged in discovering a vaccine for COVID-19 to understand how their Twitter feed balanced corporate branding, product branding (vaccine, medicines, etc.), and disseminated reliable scientific information relating to COVID-19, in the social media space. Results suggested that these companies were actively embedding technical information in their corporate and product branding in the context of COVID-19. It was also observed that tweets providing technical and scientific information about the progress made towards the development of COVID-19 vaccine garnered high levels of user engagement from target audience. Findings indicate growing importance of technical communication in corporate settings during public health crisis.