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Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 313– 318

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

ngaging stakeholders through Twitter: How nonprofit organizationsre getting more out of 140 characters or less

risten Lovejoya, Richard D. Watersb,∗, Gregory D. Saxtona

Department of Communication, University at Buffalo, SUNY, United StatesSchool of Management, University of San Francisco, United States

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 17 September 2010eceived in revised form 25 October 2011ccepted 13 January 2012

eywords:takeholder engagementocial networkingonprofit organizationswitterocial media

a b s t r a c t

While it may seem difficult to communicate in a meaningful manner with 140 charactersor less, Twitter users have found creative ways to get the most out of each Tweet by usingdifferent communication tools. This paper looks into how 73 nonprofit organizations useTwitter to engage stakeholders not only through their tweets, but also through other vari-ous communication methods. Specifically it looks into the organizations utilization of tweetfrequency, following behavior, hyperlinks, hashtags, public messages, retweets, and multi-media files. After analyzing 4655 tweets, the study found that the nation’s largest nonprofitsare not using Twitter to maximize stakeholder involvement. Instead, they continue to usesocial media as a one-way communication channel as less than 20% of their total tweetsdemonstrate conversations and roughly 16% demonstrate indirect connections to specificusers.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

. Introduction

Launched in October, 2006, Twitter is a short message service, or “micro-blogging” application, that allows users toroadcast real-time messages of 140 characters or less. Since then, Twitter has become the largest micro-blogging siten the Internet. About 19% of all Internet users use Twitter, and strategic communicators recognize its ability to reach aarge number of stakeholders, making it the most used social media application in official public relations, advertising, and

arketing campaigns (Stelzner, 2009).Social media sites allow for the rapid dissemination of information as well as the rapid exchange of information. Twitter

mplifies the rapidity of the information exchange by limiting the size of the messages to easily digestible informationieces. Some feel that 140 characters is too brief for meaningful information; however, organizations are using it for muchigger purposes. The purpose of this paper is to examine how organizations on the Nonprofit Times 100 use Twitter tongage stakeholders by examining their use of various communication tools specific to Twitter, including following behavior,yperlinks, hashtags, public messages, and retweets.

. Literature review

.1. Social media and stakeholder engagement

Social media have opened up new possibilities for organizations to connect with their stakeholders by allowing them toeceive real-time feedback about organizational announcements and engage in conversations. Most research has focused on

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 415 422 2478; fax: +1 415 422 5035.E-mail address: rdwaters@usfca.edu (R.D. Waters).

363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.oi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.01.005

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the interpersonal implications of social networking; however, the few organizational-level studies point to a great variancein relationship cultivation behaviors. Research has found that although some environmental organizations are fully utilizingthe dialogic capacity of social media, most use their sites to simply broadcast one-way messages (Bortree & Seltzer, 2009).Similar results across a broad cross-section of the nonprofit sector were found by examining the relationship-buildingfeatures of their Facebook pages (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). These studies concluded that organizations werelosing opportunities to engage with key supporters on Facebook.

Organizational research specific to Twitter is scarce, but evidence points to continued findings of lost opportunities.Twitter is only used by 35% of Fortune 500 companies with only 24% of those being actively involved (Barnes & Mattson,2010). Another analysis of corporate tweeting found that these accounts blended customer testimony, complaints, and prod-uct/service inquiries (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, & Chowdury, 2009). Organizations frequently sent out informational messages toattempt engagement with their followers, but rarely succeeded. One-way communication is still the most pronounced formof messaging strategy used by organizations on Twitter (Waters & Jamal, 2011; Xifra & Grau, 2010), and attempts to securefollowers to receive the one-way messages is the most common non-communication strategy (Rybako & Seltzer, 2010).

2.2. Communication tools on Twitter

While an organization’s updates, or tweets, serve as the organization’s principal communication tool on Twitter, thereare other aspects specific to Twitter that can aid in stakeholder engagement and organizational research. Organizations cancommunicate on Twitter through the use of the “@” symbol. Posting a tweet with the “@” symbol before the username of aTwitter user directs the message to that user. For example, an individual in the study’s dataset asked the March of Dimes,“@marchofdimes Do preemies tend to have higher chances of allergies and sensitivities to food, allergens?” The organizationwould see that a user mentioned them and have the ability to respond to the inquiry. Through these public messages, adialog is created between the organization and the user, but it is also viewable by anyone following the organization’s orthe individual’s account.

Sending public messages demonstrates responsiveness and establishes a dialog between users and the organization.Users direct questions and comments to the organization using a public message, and organizations should acknowledgeand respond to these messages. Ignoring a tweeted question or comment is the equivalent of not responding to an Some publicmessages are simply mentions of the organization that do not warrant a response; however, many still acknowledge usersfor mentioning the organization. Public messages also reduce the redundancy of answering the same questions repeatedlyin direct, private messages.

The number of tweets that are public messages has varied in studies from between 12.5% and 22%. Research has foundthat the percentage of public messages drops significantly when one-way information sharing activities increase, such asduring major events and crises. Public messages accounted for less than 10% of tweets during such events (Hughes & Palen,2009).

Another common feature used on Twitter is the retweet (RT), a function of the Twitter service that allows one user torepost a tweet from another user while giving acknowledgement of the user by adding “RT@[username]” to the beginning ofthe message. For example, the Make-A-Wish Foundation retweeted the following message from MacysInc: “RT @MacysInc:Our Believe stations are overflowing – 314,000 letters to Santa so far! Don’t forget to add yours & help grant WISHES!”Retweets can be used to highlight involvement with another organization or to share information that the organizationfinds pertinent. Retweets can also be used when answering public messages, so as to keep the full dialog together.

The use of hashtags, represented by the pound sign (#), denotes that a message is relevant to a particular topic. Hashtagsmake searching for information easier. For example, if a user wanted to find information about healthcare, a search forthe term healthcare would yield results, but a search for #healthcare would ensure that all results were relevant to thetopic. Hashtags works best when they have been established and agreed upon, which usually happens when an organizationrecommends a specific hashtag to be used by those interested in an event or conversation. After the 2010 Haitian earthquake,the American Red Cross encouraged individuals to use the #Haiti hashtag to ask questions and spread news about their reliefefforts.

2.3. Another tool used within tweets are hyperlinks

Third-party websites have been created to help users share information as hyperlinks on Twitter. Two of the more popularmedia storage sites are Twitpic.com, which allows users to link to photos, and TwitVid.com, which allows users to link tovideos. These sites allow individuals to upload the picture to their sites and then tweet the picture or video in link form totheir followers.

Sharing informative links can get followers interested in the story with their tweets in the same way newspapers useheadlines. Organizations encourage followers to read the whole story by following links to non-Twitter websites. To sharehyperlinks, many organizations take advantage of URL-shortening services. Shortened URLs are often used to share these

hyperlinks within Twitter’s 140-character restriction. URL-shortening services can turn lengthy URLs, such as the NatureConservancy’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjg1kMhVvKU (42 characters), into http://bit.ly/3xuuku (20 characters).Character reduction helps conserve space for more pertinent information and attention-seeking headlines. URL-shorteningservices are beneficial to researchers because they provide metrics, such as the number of times the link has been viewed

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nd click-through source, which allows for in-depth analysis about the link’s usage. The aforementioned tools allow organi-ations to bypass Twitter’s 140-character restriction to share a significant amount of information and foster interactivity andngagement with their stakeholders. But, are nonprofits using these tools to communicate effectively? The study’s researchuestion addresses this concern:

RQ1. Are nonprofit organizations fully utilizing the communication tools available to them on Twitter?

. Method

To determine whether Twitter’s communication tools were actively being used by nonprofits, a content analysis ofrganizational tweets was conducted. The sample was taken from the 2009 listing of the “Nonprofit Times 100,” the 100argest non-university affiliated nonprofits in the United States based on revenue. Of these 100 organizations, 73 had Twitterccounts.

Tweets were collected for one month period between November 8 and December 7, 2009. All organizational tweetsublished during this period were downloaded into an SQLite relational database via the Twitter application programming

nterface using Python code written specifically for this research. The final database contained 4655 tweets, which wereouble checked against the Twitter stream for 10 of the organizations and found to be complete in all cases. The computer-ided content analysis automatically coded for all instances of the use of Twitter’s communication tools were used. Fiveercent of the 4655 sampled tweets were hand coded by two of the researchers to verify computer accuracy; this analysisesulted in an acceptable Cohen’s Kappa score for intercoder reliability (� = .94) and an accuracy rating of 96.5% whenomparing human and computer coding.

. Results

Of the 73 nonprofit organizations featured in the sample, 37% operate in the field of public/society benefit, 26% wereealthcare organizations, 18% were human service (non-healthcare) organizations, 15% were from the arts and humanitiesector, two organizations were non-university educational groups, and one organization was a religious group.

.1. Following on Twitter

At its core, Twitter is a micro-blogging site; however, it also functions as a social networking site in that users canonnect and share information. Using Twitter terminology, if one user follows another, he/she is considered a “follower,”nd if both users follow each other they are considered “friends.” The nonprofit organizations followed an average of 2842sers (sd = 6946.8) though this ranged considerably from a high of 46,723 to a low of 3. To examine the friending practicesf nonprofits, the researchers set up a Twitter account that followed all 73 sampled organizations. The researchers’ Twitterccount was followed by only 17 of these 73 organizations. Since the account was created solely for data collection andot for engagement, it can be deduced that these organizations systematically follow anyone who follows them. Followingsers that follow an organization gives the impression that the organization wants to know what they are interested in,ven if they never actually read the users’ tweets. Creating mutual ties with followers is one way organizations can at leastive the appearance of creating a community on Twitter. Conversely, an organization that does not follow anyone gives thempression that they do not want to engage in a dialog. Additionally, organizations, such as Young Life and the New Yorkublic Library, that only follow organizational accounts capable of helping to advance their missions are not using the serviceo network with the entirety of their stakeholders.

.2. Tweets

The sampled nonprofits sent out a total of 4655 tweets over the one-month period. The average number of tweets perrganization for the first two weeks (m = 33.38, sd = 35.50) were roughly half that of the entire month (m = 66.23, sd = 65.74).t should be noted that there was a considerable range for monthly tweet totals from a low of 0 to a high of 289.

The frequency with which an organization sends out tweets is used to consider how active an organization is. Organiza-ional users who self-identified as social media marketers are more likely to post daily than organizational communicatorsho do not self-identify with social media outlets (Cheng, Evans, & Singh, 2009). Followers expect organizations to be more

ctive than individual users. To determine whether the nonprofits were active Twitter users, the researchers examined eachccount to see if at least three tweets per week were sent over the first two weeks of the study. Of the 73 organizations,0.8% (n = 59) organizations were classified as active. While sending too many tweets may clutter followers’ Twitter feeds,n organization that sends too few messages risks having those messages lost among other messages.

.3. Hyperlinks

The majority of the nonprofits’ tweets (n = 3170) included hyperlinks to external information. At 68% of the total, thesage of hyperlinks by the nonprofits is considerably greater than the average individual user on Twitter, which has been

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estimated to be between 13% and 25% (Hughes & Palen, 2009). Organizations are more official information sources thanindividuals, which explains the greater proportion of links to information subsidies. Only one organization in the samplenever used any hyperlinks.

Twitpic.com was used to send 61 links to photos (1.3% of tweets) by 21 organizations, and only one used TwitVid.comto link to one video. The lack of popularity of these sites may be due to the fact that these organizations use these types ofmedia in conjunction with reports and stories that are shared through other links rather than solely sending out links ofpictures or videos.

4.4. Public messages

Sampled nonprofits used public messages in greater proportion than previously found. Of the 4655 tweets made duringthe examined month, 16.2% (n = 756) of the total were public messages, characterized as any message that started with the“@” symbol. Further analysis of the data revealed that 16 organizations in the sample (21.9%) received no public messagesfrom other Twitter users.

4.5. Retweets

Nonprofits in the sample used the retweet function less often than Twitter users in general. Hughes and Palen (2009)estimated that individuals use the function 27.8% of the time. The nonprofits in this sample had 755 (16.2%) tweets thatshared other users’ tweets. There was considerable variation as two organizations used the function more than 50 timesduring the month, and 15 never sent a retweeted message.

4.6. Hashtags

Nearly 30% of the nonprofits’ tweets (n = 1394) included one or more hashtags. Reflecting widespread variation, 11nonprofits never used a hashtag with their tweets, and 10 organizations used hashtags more than 40 times. The use ofhashtags by these organizations is likely a sign that the nonprofits have a better understanding of how searches occur onTwitter and focus more on search engine optimization than the others in the sample.

5. Discussion

The current study found that Twitter is more complex than might be expected at first glance. Savvy organizations canbypass character restrictions to present detailed information with hyperlinks, to demonstrate responsiveness through publicmessages, to share information with retweets, and to build information communities by using hashtags. The findings reflectsimilar studies in that one-way information dissemination (e.g., hyperlinks and retweeted messages) were the dominantcommunication tools used by the sampled nonprofits.

Consultants have stressed that organizations develop a social media strategy to grow virtual communities with stake-holders (e.g., Li & Bernoff, 2008; Solis & Breakenridge, 2009); however, there have been only minimal results that indicatesocial media results in conversation and community building. While its usage is on an uptick, there has been only minimalevidence of interactivity and relationship-building. The current study similarly reveals that organizations are continuing touse social media as they would a traditional information subsidy.

Just as scholars have found that Facebook failed to capitalize on the engagement elements of the site (e.g., Bortree & Seltzer,2009; Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011) and that blogs are predominantly one-way message channels (e.g.,Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007), Twitter is proving to be yet another social media outlet being hyped for relationship-building effortsthat public relations practitioners do not fully perceive. Rather than using public messages to reply to other Twitter users orconnecting to others by retweeting messages that may be helpful to others, nonprofits are primarily using the site to relayinformation using one-way communication.

One has to wonder why public relations practitioners are not using the interactive elements in the proportions that theyare advocated by consultants. Kent (2008) cautioned organizations to venture carefully into social media as little evidenceexists that it truly can build communities around organizations and that responsiveness to blog postings is limited to a smallhandful of individuals. Additionally, research has shown that individuals are apathetic to organizations’ use of social mediaas they primarily use the services to connect with friends, family, and co-workers (Vorvoreanu, 2009). But perhaps the lackof time and resources being put into organizations’ social media accounts stems from the lack of research indicating thatsocial media use produces support for short-term or long-term financial benefits for the organization.

There may be a more simplistic reason for the lack of interaction on organizations’ social media accounts. Despite thesuggestions by consultants, practitioners may neither understand nor believe that social media is the cure-all for organiza-tional communication efforts. Social media consultants reiterate the power of social media by focusing on customer service

issues, but practitioners have had a history of battling organizational perceptions equating public relations and customerservice.

The Excellence Theory found that public relations thrived when it was recognized as a management counseling functionnot a lower level function putting out individual fires (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995), and these findings are reiterated

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hroughout public relations textbooks and research journals. Perhaps practitioners are facing cognitive dissonance fromeing told by consultants that they should embrace a lower level customer service function rather than engage in traditionaloundary spanning and environmental scanning at the management consulting level. No doubt, social media can be usedo accomplish both tasks; however, consultants and “how-to” handbooks have yet to recognize this key difference.

Until the field decides which direction to pursue, research will most likely continue to produce results similar to thistudy’s findings. Although some organizations in the sample are using Twitter to create genuine dialog, most are using its just another way to send out information such as that found in traditional newsletters, media kits, and annual reports.lthough it may seem counterintuitive that real interactions can happen in 140 characters or less, Twitter can be used as

tool for stakeholder engagement—if practitioners use it proactively to meet the traditionally taught boundary spanningnd environmental scanning roles of the discipline’s management function or to use it reactively for customer service asuggested by consultants.

. Conclusion

While Twitter is the leading social media outlet for organized campaign efforts, strategic communicators still remainuzzled over how to best use Twitter to connect with their external stakeholders on a daily basis. Organizations are only

imited in how they use Twitter by the imaginations of their communicators. While many may perceive 140-characters aseing restrictive in the amount of information that can be shared, Twitter offers a variety of tools that allow organizationso bypass the reliance on short messages. The current findings indicate that organizations vary significantly in the way theyse the different tools. However, a few limitations should be discussed before concluding about how nonprofits use Twitter.

.1. Limitations

The nonprofits chosen for the study were selected using an established list of the largest nonprofits in the United States.hile this choice was made for its provision of a sound design framework, it limits the understanding of organizational use

f Twitter by excluding smaller, community-based nonprofits. It can be argued that smaller, grassroots nonprofits may beore interactive and use conversational tweets with their followers rather than using one-way information dissemination

ractices. Another limitation of the study is that it cannot measure the number of private, direct messages made by theonprofits. While the proportion of public messages was relatively low and indicated that the nonprofits may not be engag-

ng with other Twitter users frequently, this conclusion may not be true. Perhaps those with questions or concerns wereddressed privately rather than through the public messaging; this private messaging would demonstrate conversation, andt might be a preferred method of relationship-building because of its one-on-one communicative nature.

.2. Future research

In addition to future research addressing the limitations, additional research needs to be conducted to analyze otherimensions of Twitter. Comparisons between the nonprofit, for-profit, and government sectors may reveal variations inwitter communication strategy. Additionally, the number of communication tools has changed since the data for this studyere collected. Twitter now allows users to create lists of users, which could aid organizational communication to specific

roups, and allows users to share their geographic location with their tweets, which organizations could use to attractudiences to specific events. However, perhaps one of the most beneficial studies would examine how shared links areeing used. Are the hyperlinks shared on Twitter sending users to interactive spaces, such as blogs or Facebook, where onlineommunities can form, or are they merely serving as a gateway to the organization’s website, where the virtual brochuretrategy continues to dominate? Exploring where these hyperlinks connect would reveal insights into how organizationsiew social media’s role in organizational endeavors.

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