How do social media and Google search trends reflect the e-cigarette market?

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are a relatively new tobacco product whose market dynamics are reflected through social media activity and Google search trends, according to researchers at UR CTSI.

“Digital footprints of the US e-cigarette market: correlations among retail sales data, social media activity and Google search trends,” by Zidian Xie, PhD, research assistant professor of Clinical and Translational Research, and Dongmei Li, PhD, professor of Clinical and Translational Research and member of the Wilmot Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention and Control program, examines these indicators.

“Our study found strong correlations between Google search trends, social media mentions, and sales data for four popular e-cigarette brands,” Xie, the first author, said. “Given their accessibility and real-time nature, Google search and social media data offer valuable tools for timely monitoring of e-cigarette brand prevalence, particularly in detecting newly emerging e-cigarette products in the rapidly evolving market.”

Xie and Li are serving as co-investigators on an international tobacco control project funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that focuses on predicting and understanding the use of nicotine products in a rapidly evolving nicotine marketplace.

“Our collaborators posed an important question regarding whether social media data correlate with sales data for emerging e-cigarette brands,” Li, the last author, said. “If real-time monitoring of social media mentions can predict which brands are likely to gain popularity, such insights could help the FDA take timely regulatory actions, such as issuing warning letters.

Working with researchers from RTI International and the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Xie and Li determined that social media and Google search trends could provide insight into which brands and products might gain traction and widespread popularity.

“Regulatory policy often struggles to keep pace with the rapidly changing e-cigarette market,” Xie said. “It is critical to timely monitor that market to inform regulatory action and protect public health, particularly among youth.”

The research team sees further opportunities to improve their ability to monitor trends by expanding the sample size and analyzing data from Reddit and Instagram.

“Future research should aim to expand the application of these real-time monitoring approaches to other tobacco products, such as nicotine pouch products and IQOS—smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes—which are gaining popularity, thereby enhancing our understanding of their market dynamics and supporting evidence-based regulatory decisions,” Li said.

This research greatly benefited from collaboration with the investigators from the NCI’s international tobacco control project, who provided access to retail sales data used in the study. The team also incorporated AI tools to analyze e-cigarette-related social media posts across Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to identify key features associated with high user engagement.

“The insights gained will help inform the development of effective vaping prevention messages aimed at reducing vaping initiation among youth and young adults and supporting cessation among current users,” Li said.
 

Jonathan Raab | 11/18/2025