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Articles

Social Media as a Communication Strategy: Content Analysis of Top Nonprofit Foundations’ Micro-blogs in China

Pages 255-271 | Published online: 29 Jun 2016
 

ABSTRACT

As Web 2.0 has become a trend, an increasing number of nonprofit foundations in China have started to utilize social media for strategic communication. Based on a quantitative content analysis, this study examines how social media, more specifically Sina Weibo, was used by the top 300 nonprofit public-fundraising foundations in China to advance their missions. Message strategy and dialogic communication strategy used to build and maintain organization-public relationships were identified. The result shows that top nonprofit foundations in China mainly relied on Sina Weibo to disseminate information, promoting issues and activities as well as calling for help. Two-way communication process and dialogic loops between foundations and audience were revealed. Audio, video, emotional appeals, dialogic, and interactive features have not been fully utilized, although micro-blog posts with certain multimedia and dialogic/interactive features were significantly more likely to be commented, shared, and liked. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Funding

This research is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.

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