Effective Social Media Engagement for Nonprofits: What Matters?

<p>We employ public management relationship theory to examine how nonprofits can effectively engage social media stakeholders in two-way communication. Though many nonprofit organizations have a social media presence, there is variance in how well organizations use social media to engage stake...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Julia L Carboni, Sarah P. Maxwell
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Midwest Public Affairs Conference 2015-03-01
Series:Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.jpna.org/index.php/jpna/article/view/29
Description
Summary:<p>We employ public management relationship theory to examine how nonprofits can effectively engage social media stakeholders in two-way communication. Though many nonprofit organizations have a social media presence, there is variance in how well organizations use social media to engage stakeholders. Simply having a social media presence is not enough to engage stakeholders.  We examine Facebook posts of a stratified random sample of youth development organizations to determine what predicts stakeholder engagement. We find the type of Facebook post is a significant predictor of stakeholder engagement.  Longer posts also significantly predict increased stakeholder engagement.  At the organizational level, having many posts is a significant negative predictor of stakeholder engagement, indicating that users may feel bombarded and are less likely to engage.  Increased organizational spending on advertising as a proportion of total budget is positively associated with stakeholder engagement. </p>
ISSN:2381-3717