Speaking and being heard: How nonprofit advocacy organizations gain a…

In other words, how can nonprofits rise above the swamp of information through creativity and ingenuity, and how can they turn that attention into action?

We know nonprofit organizations are using social media to engage in advocacy work. But we don’t know how they are doing it.

Hypotheses – Network Characteristics
H1: The level of attention an organization receives will be positively associated with the number of followers the organization has.
Hypotheses – Communication Strategy
Timing and Pacing.
H2: The level of attention an organization receives will be positively associated with the number of tweets sent by the organization.
Targeting and Connecting Strategy.
H3: The level of attention an organization receives will be positively associated with the number of public reply messages sent by the organization.
H4a: The level of attention an organization receives will be positively associated with the number of the organization’s tweets that are retweets of other users’ tweets.
H4b: …with the number of hashtags.
H4c: …with the number of URLs
H4d: …with the number of user mentions
Visual Content
H5a,b,c: inclusion of photo; photo link; video link

Charity Navigator, America&apos;s leading independent charity evaluator, works to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the Financial Health and Accountability and Transparency of 6,000 of America&apos;s largest charities.
To be eligible for evaluation, an organization must be 501(c)(3), have at least four consecutive years of IRS Forms 990 available, and receive public support greater than $500,000 and total revenue more than $1,000,000 in the most recent fiscal year.
Excluded are charities that report zero fundraising costs or that receive most of their funding from government grants or fees for services.
DATA AND METHOD
Three sets of analyses
Ordinary OLS
One-way fixed-effects
Two-way fixed-effects

There seems to be a magic number: 200?

A small # of followers appears to seriously hamper an organization&apos;s ability to garner attention, no matter the content of the tweet.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a Scientology front group which campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatrists. CCHR follows the Scientology doctrine that psychiatrists (&apos;psychs&apos;) are the primary cause of evil in society. CCHR also blames psychiatry for school shootings, the 9/11 attacks on America, the German Holocaust, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, etc.
Public Reply Messages (aka Direct Messages, @ messages) are not good at drawing attention. However, Direct messages do serve other purposes -- esp. dialogue and responsiveness). After your relationship with these users grow over time, every once in a while you can ask them to retweet some of my tweets. And because they have a ton of followers, that tweet also gets retweeted a handful of times.

This goes beyond just &apos;celebrity fishing&apos; within discrete messages. There appear to be other generalizable actions taken to link the organization&apos;s message to broader networks (with celebrity mentions, celebrity RTs, hashtags, etc.)
Dianna Agron ‏@DiannaAgron has nearly 15 million followers. Ellen DeGeneres ‏@TheEllenShow has over 16 million followers. Obama has over 27 million followers.

indirect advocacy tactics (e.g., public education, grassroots lobbying)

Speaking and being heard: How nonprofit advocacy organizations gain attention in the social media world

Gregory Saxton

Speaking and being heard: How nonprofit advocacy organizations gain attention in the social media world