Speaking and Being Heard: How Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations Gain Attention on Social Media

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 16174
Author(s):  
Chao Guo ◽  
Gregory D. Saxton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Nonprofit Advocacy

Speaking and Being Heard: How Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations Gain Attention on Social Media

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Guo ◽  
Gregory D. Saxton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Noisy Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nonprofit Advocacy

The social media era ushers in an increasingly “noisy” information environment that renders it more difficult for nonprofit advocacy organizations to make their voices heard. How then can an organization gain attention on social media? We address this question by building and testing a model of the effectiveness of the Twitter use of advocacy organizations. Using number of retweets and number of favorites as proxies of attention, we test our hypotheses with a 12-month panel dataset that collapses by month and organization the 219,915 tweets sent by 145 organizations in 2013. We find that attention is strongly associated with the size of an organization’s network, its frequency of speech, and the number of conversations it joins. We also find a seemingly contradictory relationship between different measures of attention and an organization’s targeting and connecting strategy.

Social Media and Social Change

2014 ◽  
pp. 56-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauri Goldkind ◽  
John G. McNutt
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Comprehensive System ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
Media And Technology ◽  
Nonprofit Advocacy

Technological advances in communications tools, the Internet, and the advent of social media have changed the ways in which nonprofit organizations engage with their various constituents. Nonprofits now have a constellation of tools including: interactive social media sites, mobile applications (apps), Websites, and mash-ups that allow them to create a comprehensive system for mobilizing supports to advocate for changing public policies. From Facebook to Twitter and from YouTube to Pinterest, communicating to many via words and images has never been easier. The authors explore the history of nonprofit advocacy and organizing, describe the social media and technology tools available for moving advocacy goals forward, and conclude with some possible challenges that organizations considering these tools could face.

How Social Media are Changing Nonprofit Advocacy: Evidence from the Crowdfunding Platform in Taiwan

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-370
Author(s):  
Shulin Zhou ◽  
Chienliang Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Nonprofit Advocacy

AbstractHow nonprofit organizations (NPO) utilize social media to engage in advocacy work is regarded as one of the most important challenges in the digital economy era. However, although current studies pay their attention to how NPO react to the prevalence of social media, less focus is paid on how social media help to shape NPO’s practices on advocacy work. To help close the gap between theory and practice, this research explores whether the alignment between NPO’s advocacy practices and features of social media determine the NPO’s usage on social media. In particular, how the crowdfunding platform, an emerging and powerful form of social media, is used by NPO is investigated. Those crowdfunding projects initiated by NPO in FlyingV, the most well-known crowdfunding platform in Taiwan, are taken as the data source for analysis in this paper. The findings reveal that crowdfunding platforms are beneficial to NPO in turns of gaining resources and attracting participants, which then fostering the realization of advocacy activities. As well, the efficiency of crowdfunded projects (or advocacy proposals) is mainly determined by the number of participants (or sponsors). However, based on the findings, it is argued that NPO so far have not realized the power of crowdfunding platforms, thus not yet regarding crowdfunding platforms as key social media or strategic weapons in strengthening their impact or contribution on advocacy work relevant to their missions.

scholarly journals Tools Beyond Control: Social Media and the Work of Advocacy Organizations

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511771423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis E. Hestres
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Internet Governance ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Media Services ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Technical Features

Advocacy organizations rely on social media services, such as Facebook and Twitter, to engage their supporters. These services increasingly influence how citizens and advocacy organizations engage politically online through the technical features and policies they choose to implement—a phenomenon that can sometimes disrupt the work of advocates. Interviews with digital strategists at several US advocacy organizations revealed low levels of awareness of this phenomenon, despite its potential impact on their work; substantial dependence on these services for advocacy work; and a shared sense of necessity to embrace these tools, despite their potential downsides. Implications for the scholarship and practice of Internet governance and digitally mediated advocacy are discussed.

scholarly journals Individuals’ Use of Twitter to Discuss Freedom of Information in the United States: A Social Network Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Kayla Schwoerer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Freedom Of Information Act ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
The U.S

This study employs social network analysis to examine more than 10,000 Twitter interactions that include the U.S. Freedom of Information Act hashtag (#FOIA) to understand who is engaging online, and to what extent. The analysis finds evidence of a dynamic conversation online among citizens, journalists, advocates, and public agencies. Findings offer insights into how citizens are using social media to engage with government and one another in conversations around important public policies, such as government transparency, as well as how technologies such as social media can be leveraged to better understand citizens’ interest. The study also found a significant increase in tweets during national Sunshine Week, a vehicle that increases national dialogue about FOI, and highlights effective social media strategies employed by MuckRock and other advocacy organizations.

Introduction of #PancChat: A novel Twitter platform to inform and engage the pancreatic cancer community.

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 242-242
Author(s):  
Allyson J. Ocean ◽  
Niraj Jaysukh Gusani ◽  
Muhammad Shaalan Beg ◽  
Anirban Maitra ◽  
Julissa Viana ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Pancreatic Cancer ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Disease Research ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Specific Community ◽  
Media Channels

242 Background: Twitter provides a platform for health care stakeholders to disseminate information about diseases to patients, caregivers, and doctors. Chats are especially effective because participants can interact directly with experts. Pancreatic cancer (PC) conversations on Twitter previously were sporadic and inconsistent. The authors report the creation of #PancChat, a first-of-its-kind Tweet Chat developed to provide relevant, credible, and timely information to the PC community. A collaboration between leading PC organizations, a pharmaceutical company, and an academic oncologist, PancChat is an example of successful outreach using an accessible communications tool. Methods: Launched in April 2016, the hour-long monthly chat is a live event publicized and promoted through multiple social media channels and major news outlets. It is moderated and focused around a pre-selected topic. The hashtag #PancChat is used to filter specific chatter into a single conversation. Participants include patients, caregivers, physicians, researchers, top ASCO social media influencers, AACR members, and advocacy organizations. Moderators and participants are drawn from 23 academic institutions. The PancChat team corresponds with participants and replies to tweets that are not addressed during the chat. Results: Since its inception, PancChat has had a total of 28 million impressions (the total number of times each tweet is seen) from 16 chats, averaging 1.75 million per chat. Popular topics include clinical trials (1.4 million), familial/hereditary PC (2.9 million), and early detection (2.2 million). The average engagement rate is 72% which measures how much people interact with a tweet by clicking or sharing links. From April 2016-August 2017 there were 8,502 tweets using #PancChat. Conclusions: Impression and engagement numbers show that this novel PancChat platform fulfills a need for the PC community. The narrow focus of each chat provides an opportunity to learn about the disease, research, and clinical trials. Participants return knowing that they will interact with PC experts. The popularity of PancChat among patients and doctors confirms the power of social media to reach a specific community.

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