Running head: THE STRATEGIC USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The Strategic Use of Social Media in Nonprofits External Communications

Shihua Xu
Syracuse University

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I.

Introduction

Social media has changed the strategies of external communications for nonprofit
organizations. It offers an economical way for nonprofits to motivate the public, promote
dialogic communications, engender trust and credibility, and draw attention to the belittled
problems. The literature review has shown three major trends: interactive relationship building,
targeted and action-oriented information, and transparency and accountability.
Trend 1: Interactive Relationship Building
The advanced technology enables nonprofits to weave interactive social networks, and to
foster dialogic communication with stakeholders (Waters & Lo, 2012; Nah & Saxton, 2012).
Trend 2: Targeted and Action-oriented Information
Strategically targeted information and action-oriented messages can help nonprofits
mobilize their audiences and build sound relationships (Saxton & Guo, 2011; Amtzis, 2014).
Trend 3: Transparency and Accountability
Information transparency of nonprofits can engender trust and commitment from their
audiences, and it aids in accountability that organizations thrive on (Hale, 2014).
Applied theories involve a broad range of academic disciplines: public relations, marketing,
psychology, management, sociology, economics, etc. Data analysis, experiments, survey, focus
group and literature review are the most frequent used research methods.
The purpose of my literature review is to study how to strategically utilize social media to
improve external communications for nonprofits, and how these trends benefit them as a whole.

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II. Main Ideas

The advent of social media has presented various communication opportunities for
nonprofit organizations to further amplify their impact by adopting new strategies. Strategic
use of social media has become an essential element in nonprofit organizations external
communications. There is a tendency that more and more nonprofits in the U.S. begin to
engage in the social media platforms and interact directly with their stakeholders. Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram are the most frequently used social media applications. Witnessing this
significant change along with the growing adoption of social media, numerous researchers
have conducted relevant studies on how social media can benefit nonprofit organizations and
help them generate rewarding outcomes. After reviewing 12 literatures, I have extracted three
major trends that can influence nonprofits performance in the new media era: interactive
relationship building, targeted and action-oriented information, and transparency and
accountability.
1. Trends
Trend 1: Interactive Relationship Building
Interactive communications could help nonprofit organizations cultivate and maintain
relationship with their stakeholders. The interactive nature of social media is efficient to help
nonprofits engage their stakeholders. Waters (2009) conducted a content analysis of 275
nonprofits organization profile on Facebook, and found that nonprofits commonly belittled the
interactive nature of social networking and lacked time or resources on maintaining their
Facebook. Based on the analysis on nonprofits use of Twitter, Guo & Saxton (2014) found
that Twitter is a powerful communication tool for public education approach and offers
strong possibilities for constituency engagement that effectively enhance nonprofit advocacy

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and cultivate relationship. Jaskyte (2012) also stated that social media adoption helps facilitate
external communications among multiple parties like donors, members, clients and
volunteers, and improve the relationships with them. Interactive engagement with key
organizational stakeholders was a critical dimension of accountability(Saxton & Guo, 2011),
and engaging donors in more conversations helps encourages more loyalty in the
relationship(Waters, 2011). In addition, Carpenter (2011) came up with a new method to
enhance relationship building process that nonprofits should engage in conversations with
free agents on social media, like bloggers and Twitter and Facebook users. With their help,
nonprofits are more likely to motivate their stakeholders and build meaningful relationships.
Therefore, using more social networking applications to meet diverse needs of their
stakeholders is important in building and maintain relationships. The use of social media can
help nonprofits engender a more active, dialogic and interactive civil society with their
stakeholders (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012).
Trend 2: Targeted and Action-oriented Information
Appealing and persuasive multimedia messages produced and disseminated by
campaigners in nonprofits can effectively aid the campaign progress (Amtzis, 2014), and the
targeted information helps facilitate meaningful relationship and mobilize target audience
(Guo & Saxton, 2014). Waters & Lo (2012) conducted a content analysis of 225 nonprofit
organizations Facebook profiles, and they found that organizations can disseminate messages
tailored to the public needs because Facebook embraces a dialogic feature and allows
multimedia sharing. Studying on grassroots nonprofits performance on social media, Amtzis
(2014) found that small organizations tend to succeed in their campaigns due to the oriented
information and swift distribution provided by social media. By analyzing 100 nonprofit

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organizations use of Twitter, Lovejoy & Saxton (2012) also found that nonprofits heavily rely
on creating action-oriented messages to motivate a broader external public to take action. The
publics generally pay more attention to the messages that are designed to meet their need, and
they present more loyalty to the organizations that have noticed and valued their needs. In
addition, as Facebook and Twitter serve for different purposes, nonprofit organizations can
use them to create specific messages targeted to different audiences (Nah & Saxton, 2013).
The unique feature of certain social media application should be taken in to account when the
nonprofits are designing their targeted messages.
Trend 3: Transparency and Accountability
Numerous researchers have conducted study on online accountability practices of nonprofit
organizations. Financial disclosure and transparency are the most influential ones that can
affect nonprofits accountability. Financial disclosure and transparency can help build trust
and accountability, because stakeholders, especially donors, place heavy emphasis on the
information of financial performance of nonprofits (Saxton & Guo, 2011). By analyzing the
organization-donor relationship through surveys sent to donors in nonprofit hospital in the
western United States, Waters (2011) pinpointed that transparent communications facilitate
donors understanding on nonprofits work and further influence accountability. It is believed
that donors have an urge to know how their donations are put into practice and used to fulfill
nonprofits missions. Hale (2014) also held that nonprofits are more likely to retain public
trust when they are open to public inspection. The creation of fortresses and fear of sharing
information to the public actually will do harm to the nonprofits (Carpenter, 2011).
Transparency comes at an actual financial cost to nonprofits related to their efficiency of
transparency practices. Nonprofits with fewer resources may have higher financial pressure.

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Moreover, social media has been a helpful vehicle for organizations to foster transparency and
accountability. Amtzis (2014) found that skillful social media use boosts nonprofits
credibility and support, for it makes transparency possible with detailed information on
funding sources. The interactive use of information communication technologies can increase
the level of accountability and help build trustful relationships with the stakeholders.
2. The Strengths and Weaknesses
Among these 12 literatures I reviewed, researchers focus rest on mainly three trends that
can help nonprofits advance their external communications by making full use of social
media. The interactive relationship building trend focuses on the strategic use of social media
to foster interactive and dialogic relationships between nonprofit organizations and their
stakeholders. In the second trend, nonprofits can create some targeted and action-oriented
information to mobilize the target audience and facilitate publics specific action, like
donating or participating in their programs. Transparency and accountability, especially
through financial disclosure, are important to help smooth communications and maintain loyal
relationships. These researches have shown a clear picture of how nonprofits in the social
media era can improve their external communications. However, there are some deficiencies
needed to improve in the future research.
2.1. Strengths of the Research
Researchers have done fairly thorough studies on nonprofit organizations performance on
social media. They have examined different kinds of social media platforms, like Facebook and
Twitter, and used various research methods, like Facebook profile analysis, Twitter content
analysis, survey, qualitative interview, and literature review. They have also targeted to different
levels of nonprofit organizations, from grassroots nonprofits to well-known organizations. The

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thoroughness of research subject and method offers me a useful guidance and enables me to
conclude three representative trends.
2.2. Weakness of the Research
As online technology is developing rapidly, social media has changed along the period. It
is possible that the study conducted in 2013 may not be representative enough to indicate the
situation in 2014. The features of some social media applications or audiences preference on
social media can also change over time. The three trends generated basically on these researches
may not be feasible and effective all the time due to the consistently changeable social media
applications.
III. Application
1. The Case Study The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
In last summer this year, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has quickly gone from a fundraising
campaign to a viral Internet sensation. Social media were full of videos and photos of celebrities,
inventors, CEOs, athletes and politicians all taking part in this viral sensation over that time. The
Ice Bucket Challenge eventually benefited the ALS Association, which is dedicated to raising
funds to research a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis as well as caring for those with the
disease. It has been one of the most discussed topics selected in 2014, and it is regarded as a
model for nonprofits to learn how to utilize social media to promote a campaign and create a
huge impact.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is an activity involving pouring a bucket of ice water over
someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and
encourage donations to support conducting relevant research. The challenge encouraged
nominated participants to take a video having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and

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then nominating others to do the same. A common stipulation is that nominated participants have
24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation. It went viral on social
media during July to August 2014.The challenge first received increased the media attention in
the United States on June 30, 2014, when personalities of the program Morning Drive performed
a live Ice Bucket Challenge. It then was followed by television anchor Matt Lauer, golfer Chris
Kennedy, and more celebrities from different areas. The present President of the United States,
Barack Obama, and former presidents also took part in the challenge. The public started to do the
same and posted videos on social media. According to The New York Times, people shared more
than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the challenge
more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17.
After the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media, public awareness and charitable
donations to ALS charities soared. According to Forbes, hits to the English Wikipedia's article on
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) grew from an average of 163,300 views per month to 2.89
million views in August 2014, and similar increases occurred in the Spanish and German
Wikipedia. Within weeks of the challenge going viral, The New York Times reported that the
ALS Association had received $41.8 million in donations from July 29 until August 21. More
than 739,000 new donors have given money to the association, which is more than double the
$19.4 million the association received during the year that ended January 31, 2013. On August
29, the ALS Association announced that their total donations since July 29 had exceeded $100
million.
It is clearly seen that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has achieved a great success. There were
more than 2.4 million tagged videos circulating Facebook and Instagram because it utilized the
advantages of combination of competitiveness, social media narcissism, vanity, and low barriers

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to entry. The challenge was not something that a professional fundraiser came up with; rather, it
was a grass-roots campaign. It started from the general people, and was passed virally around the
country and even the world. Most importantly, it was aided by social media, which has given it
ability to go virally. In fact, social media campaigns are very difficult to pull off, and nonprofits
have struggled on it. Therefore, the Ice Bucket Challenge has shared a critical value for
nonprofits to review how they can enhance their impact with the help of social media.
2. The Connections and Gaps between My Research and the Case Study
We have seen a great success on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The success may be not be
duplicated, but lessons regarding strategic adoption of social media on external communications
can be shared for nonprofits.
To begin with, the Ice Bucket Challenge is a good example of an organization that can make
full use of the nature of social media. As frequent users of social media, we can notice that social
media embraces the features of interactivity, large audience, viral spread and multimedia forms.
Social media can get everyone involved in certain topic regardless of the limitation of time and
locations. Everyone on social media can readily reach out to a large population and interact with
anyone who shares the same interest on certain topic. Social networking on large audience is
easily established through social media. Meanwhile, messages through social media are easy to
create and also easy to share. It has given the contagious content the possibility to spread rapidly
and virally overnight. The multimedia forms enables the messages creators to use vivid forms of
media, like pictures and videos, to effectively facilitate and smooth the communications.
Moreover, the Ice Bucket Challenge has some gaps and resonance with this study.
Trend 1: Interactive Relationship Building
The Ice Bucket Challenge was such a runaway success because it utilized the interactive

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nature of social media and got people involved. Millions of people had taken the challenge and
posted videos online. The rule of nominating a minimum of three other people to participate in
the challenge not only caused the viral effect of the dissemination, but also gave people an
opportunity to interact with their friends and even the people around the world. People love to
have fun, especially enjoy having fun together like a feast. More than merely having fun, people
actively support the worthy cause to raise awareness of disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) and to fund the research in the relevant field. The Ice Bucket Challenge has helped the
ALS Association to retain its stakeholders and successfully motivate them to generate donating
action.
In addition, it was an immersive way to build relationships with the publics. Behind the
campaign itself, we can see a meaningful relationship built during the period. People might
accept the challenge based on fun at first, yet they were also unconsciously aware of the disease
and recognized the ALS Association. Once they accepted the challenge or donated money for the
campaign, they actually had built relationship with the organization. They had become the
donors of the ALS Association. They then had the urge to know how many people, the same as
them, accepted the challenge and contributed to it, and to pay closely attention what was going
on. Therefore, the ALS Association successfully built a meaningful relationship with its
stakeholder through this interactive campaign.
Trend 2: Targeted and Action-oriented Information
The Ice Bucket Challenges success to some extent attributes to the savvy of targeted and
action-oriented information. The message conveyed in this campaign was very clear and
straightforward to take the challenge of pouring ice water over head or to donate money for
support. Simple messages are easy to grasp and translated into action, increasing the possibility

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that people actually will respond. It also matches peoples needs to have fun. People like to
laugh, so the videos flooding around the social media can entertain them. Keeping things
lighthearted lets people connect with the organization on a human level and can encourage
further engagement in an authentic way.
Additionally, it is regarded as a representative hashtag activism, where the hashtag
function in social media enables it to facilitate the flow of targeted and action-oriented messages.
By hashtagging the campaign and the cause, the campaign can go more rapidly and virally and
reach a broader target audience who are interested in the cause. Accordingly, the campaign is
more likely to succeed due to the oriented information and swift distribution provided by social
media (Amtzis, 2014).
Trend 3: Transparency and Accountability
At the end of August 2014, the ALS Association announced that donations raised by the ALS
Ice Bucket Challenge have peaked at over $100 million in one month. Thats a 3,500% increase
from the $2.8 million that the ALS Association raised during the same time period last year.
More than three million people have participated in the challenge and donated. However, it also
raised questions and critique on where the donations were really put into support the cause. It is
clear that people in this new media era have placed high value on the transparency, and that they
tend to supervise the nonprofits and activity through the more accessible social media platforms.
Financial disclosure and transparency can help build trust and accountability (Saxton & Guo,
2011). The ALS Association gained trust from people to support the campaign, and it also should
retain the publics through a transparent communication and needed information disclosure. It has
to be financially accountable especially after such a great success with more than $100 million
donations so as to maintain a trustful and solid relationship with its stakeholders in a long term.

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However, the ALS Association didn't do well in building transparency and accountability after
the campaign. The information regarding the use of donations is few on the Internet and social
media. Audiences from Facebook and Twitter have expressed their questions about where the
donations were used but had no response. Given the nature of social media, if the ALS
Association still had no measures on social media to maintain a transparent communication, the
social media can also do harm to it, even though it has made it success once. Therefore, the
creation of fortresses to the public actually will do harm to the nonprofits (Carpenter, 2011).
3. My Critical Review of the Study
The literatures have provided guidance for me to understand the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
mainly from three dimensions: building interactive relationship, designing targeted messages and
promoting transparency. Although it is a short-term campaign just lasting for one month, it has
shown some critical strategies that nonprofits can advance their external communication through
social media in a long term.
When I first heard the news about the Ice Bucket Challenge in summer, I actually focused on
the campaign itself and how people reacted to the campaign. I didnt examine the campaign from
an organizational perspective. After reviewing 12 literatures and understanding nonprofits
missions and performance on social media, I can extract several strategies that can help
nonprofits to thrive on social media. Building and maintaining an interactive relationship is
crucial in this case, as nonprofits commonly need support and engagement from their
stakeholders. The ALS Association benefited from this campaign and succeeded, not only
because the campaign itself was appealing, but also because it managed to convince and retain
the publics by showing their commitment. Also, the campaign has made full advantage of the
nature of social media and grasped the needs of the target publics, so it effectively mobilized

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people with its action-oriented messages and achieved a rewarding outcome. Last but not least,
maintaining a meaning relationship with the stakeholder is a long-term work that cannot be
belittled even after such a successful campaign. Transparent commutation is what the ALS
Association should place more attention to if they want to thrive in a long term.
IV. Takeaways for Professional Practices in PR
In this social media era, public relations professionals for nonprofit organizations should
master the nature of social media and strategically use it as an efficient tool to advance the
external communications, so as to expend the impact of the organizations. Here some takeaways
for reference.
1.

Select a worthy cause as a foundation to promote the campaign to the external

stakeholders. People are more likely to be mobilized when the cause resonates with
their emotion or matches their social value to gain self-satisfaction.

2.

Engaging the audience in a fun and easy activity with a good cause speaks louder
than merely advocacy. The lighthearted content of activity makes people feel connected
with an organization and can encourage further engagement, while advocacy at most
time bores the audience.

3.

Give the audience a chance to interact with people on social media. People like being
seen that they are doing something out of a good cause, and they thus tend to develop
more attention and loyalty to the organization.

4.

Share information or start a campaign on various social media platforms with vivid
media forms. Various social media platforms and vivid media forms, which are more
appealing, can work together to attract a large audience that traditional media cannot
reach.

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5.

Design an action-oriented message to motivate the target audience. Nonprofit

organizations have to show their objectives clearly in every activity they initiate, or they
cannot effectively motivate their target audience when messages are ambiguous.

6.

Timely disclose financial information and maintain a transparent communication

with the stakeholders. Stakeholders need to be informed and convinced that the
nonprofit is financially accountable, so they will show their consistent support and solid
loyalty to the organization.

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