Contextualizing Nonprofits’ Use of Links on Twitter During the West African Ebola Virus Epidemic

Abstract

This study investigates how nonprofit organizations use hyperlinks embedded in tweets for strategic communication during global health crises. Within the 1,494 links included in tweets about Ebola, organizations shared owned and earned media, including news stories directly or indirectly referencing their work and positive mentions from others on social media. Links allowed organizations to raise awareness about Ebola in West Africa, promote their work, and highlight endorsements from news media and influential users. Raising awareness and building trust are key steps in becoming credible sources during highly uncertain crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Social Media
• Twitter
• Ebola
• Owned Media
• Earned Media

Notes

1. www.cidi.org/ebola-ngos/.

2. Organizations were selected by using a random integer set generator from Random.org. The random integers were 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 20, 24, 25, 27, 35, 41, 43, 47, 52, and 54. Each number corresponds to one of the organizations.

3. The IRC was left in the final list, although the tweets only go back to August 2014. We made this decision because the data set contained 167 relevant cases, unlike the two excluded organizations, UNICEF and Jhpiego, which only contained five and two relevant cases, respectively.

4. This hashtag refers to a campaign by Doctors of the World (MdM).