Terms of engagement: Facebook and Twitter use among nonprofit human service organizations

• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21403
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Kristina T. Lambright,David A. Campbell

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Terms of engagement: Facebook and Twitter

use among nonprofit human service

organizations

David A. Campbell | Kristina T. Lambright

Department of Public Administration,

Binghamton University, Binghamton,

New York

Correspondence

David A. Campbell, Department of Public

Administration, Binghamton University,

Binghamton, NY.

Email: dcamp@binghamton.edu

Abstract

This study uses Lovejoy and Saxton's (2012) hierarchy

of engagement to analyze how nonprofit human ser-

vice organizations use Facebook and Twitter to engage

stakeholders. Their framework has not been applied to

this nonprofit subgroup, and most previous scholarship

on this topic focuses on just one platform. We also con-

tribute by drawing on organizational theory to better

understand variation in the modes of engagement orga-

nizations emphasize. Based on our analysis, we add

new subcategories to the hierarchy of engagement. In

addition, we find that compared to other nonprofit sub-

groups examined in previous research, the organiza-

tions in our sample placed a greater emphasis on using

social media messages to ask stakeholders to take

action. We report only modest variations in how orga-

nizations were using Facebook and Twitter. Finally,

according to our results, resource dependence and

stewardship theories help explain the modes of engage-

ment organizations prioritize.

KEYWORDS

Social media, Stakeholder engagement, Nonprofit < management,

Facebook, Twitter

Received: 19 August 2018 Revised: 6 January 2020 Accepted: 10 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21403

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2020;30:545–568. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 545

1|INTRODUCTION

Recent research on social media has deepened our understanding of how nonprofit organiza-

tions are using Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to advance their missions. While early

studies on this topic considered social media's dialogic potential, more recent work has broad-

ened the concept of dialogue, reconceptualizing it as engagement, and emphasizing different

ways in which nonprofit organizations use social media to interact with stakeholders. The hier-

archy of engagement developed by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) has provided a theoretical foun-

dation for this research. The framework identifies three ways nonprofits use social media

messages to engage stakeholders. The most basic is providing information, followed by building

community, with requesting specific action as the highest level of engagement.

Subsequent studies utilized the hierarchy of engagement to advance our understanding of

how nonprofit organizations use social media. Several applied the framework to examine how

various nonprofit subgroups engage their stakeholders on social media, including sport-for-

development organizations (Svensson, Mahoney, & Hambrick, 2015), Chinese NGOs (Zhou &

Pan, 2016), and German foundations (Burger, 2015). Others used it to analyze how stakeholders

respond to different kinds of messages (Guidry, Waters, & Saxton, 2014; Huang, Lin, & Saxton,

2016; Lam & Nie, 2020; Park, Reber, & Chon, 2016), and to identify advocacy organizations'

Twitter tactics and strategies (Guo & Saxton, 2014).

While this work contributes to our knowledge, important gaps remain. First, while applications

oftheframeworkprovidevaluableinsightsaboutsome categories of nonprofit organizations,

researchers have not studied important subgroups, such as human service organizations. As such,

it is unclear whether the hierarchy of engagement captures all the ways various nonprofit sub-

groups engage stakeholders and whether the modes of engagement (i.e., information, community,

or action) human service nonprofits emphasize differ from what past researchers report about

other subgroups' priorities. Second, we know little about what accounts for the engage ment choice

organizations make and whether organizational theory can help explain the modes of engagement

they prioritize. Finally, nearly all studies examining how nonprofit organizations use social media,

including those applying the hierarchy of engagement, focus on one platform, typically Facebook

or Twitter. Even though there are differences in the two platforms' key features, we do not know

whether nonprofit organizations' utilization of them varies in meaningful ways. This study

addresses these issues by analyzing Facebook and Twitter use across a sample of nonprofit human

service organizations. We classify social media content generated by our sample on those platforms

using the hierarchy of engagement, analyzing both the distribution of posts and tweets, and the

organizational characteristics associated with the kind of content generated.

This paper is organized as follows. First, we summarize the state of knowledge, focusing on

how nonprofit organizations use social media to engage stakeholders. We also discuss various

organizational theories and what they suggest about the modes of engagement organizations

may emphasize. Following this, we describe our methods and findings. Finally, we explore the

implications of our study for theory and practice.

2|ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS THROUGH SOCIAL

MEDIA

Social media use by nonprofit organizations has two dimensions: presence and engagement.

Presence refers to the extent to which organizations are available to the public on social media,

546 CAMPBELL AND LAMBRIGHT