Introduction
United Way (UW) has been using Twitter since 2008 to promote its brand. Aside from advertising donation opportunities and initiatives, it has built a strong collaborative network to popularize the brand by getting retweeted by other non-profit services. Another brand promotion approach pertains to humanization-focused content and eliciting positive responses by posting congratulatory tweets or reviewing the team’s life. UW’s use of the social media trend as a strategic opportunity can be assessed as relatively successful.
Differences in the Content
Due to the peculiarities of targeting, there are stark differences between UW’s Twitter content and what gets posted on its official website. Non-profit organizations utilize Twitter for information dissemination and engaging in a digital dialogue, and UW demonstrates these and other strategies (Khan et al., 2018). The unitedway.org website serves to locate opportunities for collaboration on various levels rather than focusing only on individual donations (United Way [UW], n.d.a). Nowadays, making strategic moves transparent to stakeholders represents a managerial dilemma (David & David, 2017). The organization’s Twitter posts deemphasize long-term strategy discussions, whereas website articles provide insights into strategy (UW, n.d.a; UW, n.d.b). To incorporate stakeholder categorization into content presentation strategies, the website offers well-structured sections dedicated to partner resources, individual volunteer resources, general news, publications for subject matter experts, and so on (UW, n.d.a). In contrast, UW’s (n.d.b) Twitter account, being targeted at individual donors in the U.S., posts less diverse content, focusing on sharing donation links or introducing the team to bring awareness and inspire action. The social media platform’s technical features also offer no opportunity for organizing tweets into sections, making website content look much more organized.
Success in Capitalizing on the Social Media Trend
UW demonstrates success in capitalizing on the social media trend since it prioritizes content types that create maximum engagement and achieve mutually beneficial collaboration with other services. The hierarchy of engagement model establishes three stakeholder communication modes on Twitter, with action-based strategies promoting the highest consumer involvement levels (Campbell & Lambright, 2020). Based on previous research, the share of action-related tweets on non-profit services’ accounts rarely exceeds 15% (Campbell & Lambright, 2020). In UW’s case, eleven out of twenty or more than 50% of most recent tweets contain direct calls to action, which suggests the organization’s success in instrumentalizing the platform (UW, n.d.b). Furthermore, the organization’s follower base exceeds 211,800 Twitter users, and UW (n.d.b) has provided over 18,000 unique tweets, which is a sound achievement for a non-profit service. Aside from stakeholder engagement, UW uses the trend by following over 1230 other public accounts (UW, n.d.b). Following/retweeting are additional advertising strategies for UW, enabling it to gather users’ attention by demonstrating solidarity with other trustworthy entities.
Competitors and Social Media Outlets
UW’s competitors feature various uses of the outlets instrumentalized by UW. Unlike UW, other human service advocacy non-profits mainly use Twitter for informational purposes, with little attention paid to mobilization/action (Campbell & Lambright, 2020). Americares (n.d.), one of UW’s rival non-profits, features intense Twitter use for information-sharing and network-building, having two times more tweets and three times more followed accounts than UW despite a smaller follower base. Another competitor, Feeding America Action (n.d.), actively uses Twitter to share hunger-related infographics and repost news from research agencies and agriculture authorities, whereas donation-related tweets are sporadic. For other outlets, both UW and the aforementioned competitors also utilize YouTube channels to disseminate advocacy event highlights, live-streamed lectures/meetings, and disaster response updates (UW, n.d.a). Overall, the social media practices of UW and its competition are similar, with some differences in goal prioritization.
Conclusion
Finally, UW has capitalized on the online communication trend as an active Twitter user. The organization has quite an impressive follower base and keeps increasing potential donors’ awareness of its existence. UW engages in inter-organizational communication via Twitter, reaching more potential volunteers/donors by getting reposted by accounts with large audiences. It outperforms many entities in terms of prioritizing content to inspire action, using the strategic opportunity for stakeholder engagement.
References
Americares [@Americares]. (n.d.). Americares [Twitter profile]. Web.
Campbell, D. A., & Lambright, K. T. (2020). Terms of engagement: Facebook and Twitter use among nonprofit human service organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 30(4), 545-568. Web.
David, F. R., & David, F. R. (2017). Strategic management: A competitive advantage approach (16th ed.). Pearson Education.
Feeding America Action [@hunger]. (n.d.). Feeding America Action [Twitter profile]. Web.
Khan, M. L., Zaher, Z., & Gao, B. (2018). Communicating on Twitter for charity: Understanding the wall of kindness initiative in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. International Journal of Communication, 12, 806-830. Web.
United Way. (n.d.a). Newsroom. Web.
United Way [@UnitedWay]. (n.d.b). United Way [Twitter profile]. Web.