Staying Connected While Staying Distant: Social Media Engagement of Food Banks in Texas in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

This study explores the social media engagement of human service nonprofits during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed 2,726 tweets from 15 food banks in Texas to understand their communication and audience engagement on social media. During the early outbreak, food banks were more active on social media, and these organizations primarily shared community-building and informational content. Before the pandemic, community-building content led to the highest engagement level. However, action and informational content saw greater engagement during the crisis. Our findings reveal that online audiences perceive the importance of each content type differently in varying circumstances. By understanding preferences and needs of online audiences, human service nonprofits can harness the power of social media to amplify their impact while operating during times of crisis.

PRACTICE POINTS

• The behavior of online audiences varies between normal circumstances and times of crisis. Thus, it is important for food banks and human service nonprofits to understand the preferences and behaviors of their online audiences to utilize social media more strategically.

• When evaluating social media engagement, it is crucial to incorporate the perspective of online audiences because they perceive the significance of the three content types – informational, community-building, and action – differently in various situations.

• Nonprofit leaders and practitioners should recognize that factors including subsector characteristics and timing can impact the organization’s social media engagement. Future research should consider these factors to obtain a deeper understanding of how the nonprofit subsector utilizes social media.

KEYWORDS:

• Audience engagement
• crisis
• food banks
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).