How did sustainable Spanish and Italian brands communicate COVID-19 on social media?

Purpose This study aims to determine how the most sustainable brands in Italy and Spain developed communication and awareness-raising actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether these companies were truly involved in raising public awareness of the pandemic. The authors specifically focus on sustainable companies, as health communication is considered to be an important corporate social responsibility task. Design/methodology/approach To answer these questions, the authors have used data on the social media activity (Twitter and Instagram) of these brands in Spain and Italy, extracting the posts and associated hashtags that each of them has published throughout the pandemic to be processed using social network analysis and visualization techniques. Findings The detailed analysis of both the levels of activity and the content of the messages provides interesting insights into the communication models of the companies and the influence of factors such as time, country and the specific social media platform used. Originality/value The authors analyze the communication of the most sustainable businesses on social media during the pandemic, adopting a highly innovative approach. The particular originality of this study lies in the parallel analysis of two different countries that were simultaneously shaken by the pandemic in very similar circumstances. This study also presents a novel use of graphical representation tools in terms of companies’ behavior for health communication on social media.