TY - JOUR
T1 - How to be heard on microblogs? Nonprofit organizations' follower networks and post features for information diffusion in China
AU - CHEN, Regina Y R
AU - Fu, Jiawei Sophia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2016/7/2
Y1 - 2016/7/2
N2 - This study tackles the gap in public relations research on what drives users of microblogs in China to follow nonprofit organization (NPO) accounts and share (retweet) their posts, from a multidimensional perspective of the NPO, the microblog audience, and the post features. Using a content analysis of Sina Weibo data of 95 NPO accounts, results suggested that an NPO's status on Weibo is a significant predictor of its follower number. Follower numbers and activeness directly affected the NPO's number of retweets. Informative posts and posts that fulfill multiple gratifications were found to be more sharable than other post types. In addition, a post's originality, media richness, inclusion of opinion leaders, and endorsement by influential users all contributed to its level of circulation. This knowledge is essential for NPOs to spread information and build online communities that facilitate dialogic engagement and quality organization–public relationships with their stakeholders on social media in China's context.
AB - This study tackles the gap in public relations research on what drives users of microblogs in China to follow nonprofit organization (NPO) accounts and share (retweet) their posts, from a multidimensional perspective of the NPO, the microblog audience, and the post features. Using a content analysis of Sina Weibo data of 95 NPO accounts, results suggested that an NPO's status on Weibo is a significant predictor of its follower number. Follower numbers and activeness directly affected the NPO's number of retweets. Informative posts and posts that fulfill multiple gratifications were found to be more sharable than other post types. In addition, a post's originality, media richness, inclusion of opinion leaders, and endorsement by influential users all contributed to its level of circulation. This knowledge is essential for NPOs to spread information and build online communities that facilitate dialogic engagement and quality organization–public relationships with their stakeholders on social media in China's context.
KW - engagement
KW - Information diffusion
KW - nonprofit organizations
KW - retweet
KW - social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84941729642&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1086013
DO - 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1086013
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84941729642
SN - 1369-118X
VL - 19
SP - 978
EP - 993
JO - Information Communication and Society
JF - Information Communication and Society
IS - 7
ER -