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47 Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Q. 5 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/npvolsq47 and id is 1 raw text is: 

Article

                                                   Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
                                                               2018, Vol. 47(l) 5-26
Speaking        and     Being     Heard:                       @ The Author(s) 2017
                                                             Reprints and permissions:
How      Nonprofit Advocacygepub.com/ournalsPermissions.nav
                                                       DOl: 10.1s177/0899764017713724
Organizations Gain                Attention              journasagepub.com/home/nvs

on   Social Media                                                   OSAGE




Chao Guol and Gregory D. Saxton2




Abstract
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 I 2-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.


Keywords
advocacy, attention, nonprofit organizations, social media, Twitter


In just over 10 years, social media have arguably become both the best ally and worst
enemy  of nonprofit organizations in their effort to advocate for the people and com-
munities they serve. Regarded by some as a microphone for the masses (Murthy,
2011), a voice for the people (Wattam, 2009), or cyberactivism (McNutt & Menon,
2008), social media offer an alternative broadcast and communication medium for


'University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Chao Guo, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia,
PA 19104, USA.
Email: chaoguo@upenn.edu

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