1. Dr. Richard D. Waters October 28, 2013 Examining the Nonprofit Social Media Landscape Facebook, Twitter, and Infographics

2. What does the Public “Like” on Facebook?  RQ1: To which types of organizational messages do publics respond more favorably?  RQ2: Which types of organizational messages elicit more engagement from the public?  RQ3: For which types of organizational messages do publics become advocates within their own social networks?

3. Facebook Method  Nonprofit Times 100 list  In May, 2013, 97 of the 100 organizations had official Facebook Pages.  Facebook statuses from March 1 to April 30, 2013.  7,570 statuses posted over the two-month period.  1,000 were chosen at random for detailed coding.  Cohen’s Kappa score of.96.

4. Describing the Sample  Types of Nonprofits on Nonprofit Times 100  28% in the field of International and Foreign Affairs  14% were working in the Arts, Culture, and Humanities sector  21% were working in Health  14% worked in Youth Development and Human Services  Remainder (23%) operated in a variety of other fields, including the environment, public safety, and recreation and sports.  Average of 201,780 fans on Facebook, ranging from 569 to 2,595,490  Average of 75.7 statuses posted during the two-month period, ranging from 0 to 540.

5. RQ1: To which types of organizational messages do publics respond more favorably?  Call-to-action and Community Building statistically higher than the rest.  All remaining types statistically similar.

6. RQ2: Which types of organizational messages elicit more engagement from the public?

7. RQ3: For which types of organizational messages do publics become advocates within their own social networks?  Results indicate there were not statistical differences in the average number of shares for informational (m = 153.0, sd = 769.2) call to action (m = 113.2, sd = 252.2) community-building (m = 85.9, sd = 188.7) fundraising (m = 69.6, sd = 120.0) events and promotion (m = 69.3, sd = 126.2)

8. The Impact of Organization and Individual Disclosure on Twitter Engagement  Essentially, similar type of research questions as posed with the Facebook study… except now with an added component of disclosure.  Does the level of disclosure an organization uses with its Twitter profile impact the public’s engagement with the nonprofit?  Profile disclosure (name of person monitoring account, website, phone number, org email address, individual email, list other social media accounts)  Tweet disclosure (signed tweet, initials of author given, link to other social media accounts within Twitter updates)

9. Twitter Method  Nonprofit Times 100  In June, 2013, 97 of the 100 organizations had official Twitter profiles.  The organization’s last 10 original tweets were analyzed. (n = 970)  Retweets were skipped—unless they were modified with additional content added.  Cohen’s Kappa score of.94.

10. Describing the Sample  The organizations had tweeted an average of 9595.8 updates, ranging from 19 to 515,819.  The organizations had an average of 83,237 followers (201,780 fans on Facebook), ranging from 38 to 1,569,063.  The organizations are following an average of 8738 other Twitter accounts, ranging from 0 to 195,272.

11. Elements of Disclosure  Profile Tallies (97 profiles) 97 provided the organization website 14 listed other social media accounts 8 listed an organization phone number 6 named who monitors the account 5 listed an individual’s email address 2 listed a general organization email address None provided initials of the account manager  Tweet Tallies (970 tweets) 46 signed tweets 83 initialed tweets 117 linked internally to a social media account

12. Does the level of disclosure an organization uses with its Twitter profile impact the public’s engagement with the nonprofit?  Pearson’s correlation shows a moderate relationship between profile disclosure and retweets (r =.57, p <.001) and favoriting a tweet (r =.42, p =.001)  A strong relationship exists between tweet level disclosure and @-replies (r =.81, p <.001).  Creating a “Disclosure Level” and breaking them into 3 groups (high, medium, low) and them using one-way ANOVAs to test for differences.  Statistical differences existed for retweets (F(2, 967) = 4.59, p =.01) and for @-replies (F(2, 967) = 4.79, p =.009). No statistical differences for favoriting a tweet.  Conclusion, the more disclosure, more public engagement.

13. It may not be Accurate, but it Sure is Pretty: The Potential Harm of Health Infographics  400 infographics pulled from visual.ly’s health section  100 pulled from each tier (1-400, 401-800, 801-1200, 1201-1600)  Cohen’s Kappa score of.88.  Source credibility (# of sources used, are the sources reliable, are the sources clearly linked to the data presented—in-text citation, footnote, just listed at the end)  The relationship between source strength and # of retweets, pins, and shares (Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google+ LinkedIn).  The relationship between source strength and comments.

14. What is the relationship between source credibility, sharing infographics, and discussing them?  Sharing infographics  Likes on Visual.ly (r = -.119, p =.017)  Facebook shares (r = -.156, p =.002)  Twitter retweets (r = -.404, p <.001)  Google+ (r = -.167, p =.001)  LinkedIn (r = -.170, p =.001)  StumbleUpon (r = -.146, p =.003)  Commenting  Only available on Visual.ly (r =.631, p <.001)

15. In Conclusion…  Liking Facebook The public most likes call-to-action and community-building messages. They comment most on community-building and non-publicity information sharing messages. There isn’t much sharing going on—for any message type.  Twitter Engagement The more you disclose with the profile, the greater the number of retweets and being favorited your org is likely to receive. Conversations are generated with increased tweet-level disclosure.  Infographic Credibility The infographics that score high with a 3-item source credibility index are the ones that generate conversation about health issues. The infographics that score low on this index are more likely to be shared across multiple social media platforms.