What do Stakeholders Like on Facebook? Examining Public Reactions to Nonprofit Organizations’ Informational, Promotional, and Community-Building Messages

Abstract

Although public relations scholarship has often discussed the possibilities of dialogue and engagement using social media, research has not truly explored this dynamic. Instead, research on social media platforms has focused on measuring the content and structure of organizational profiles. This study seeks to enhance the field's discussion about social media engagement by determining what organizational content individual stakeholders prefer on Facebook in terms of liking, commenting, and sharing. A content analysis of 1,000 updates from organizations on the Nonprofit Times 100 list indicates that, based on what they comment on and like, individuals prefer dialogic, as well as certain forms of mobilizational, messages; however, they are more likely to share one-way informational messages with their own networks. These findings are interpreted using practical and theoretical implications for the practice of public relations.

Notes

Note. With maximum-likelihood models such as in negative binomial regression, there is no traditional R²; for this reason, an analogous ‘pseudo-R²’ is typically reported. The R² shown here is the ML (Cox-Snell) R ². Standard errors arein parentheses.

⁺ p < 0.10. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.