Assessing Competition for Social Media Attention Among Non-profits

Most non-profits maintain a social media presence with the hope to increase their popularity and achieve goals, such as to collect donations or recruit volunteers. While there is a strong vibe about the popularity of social media, there is very little empirical evidence on whether and how nonprofits can benefit from social media participation. We propose a method to quantify and assess the relationship between public social media attention and the amount of donations non-profits receive as a measure of success. We aim to address an essential limitation of prior research which has focused on studying the impact of social media on non-profits in isolation. To do so, we conducted a study of the Facebook participation of 76 non-profit organizations in Chile. Our results highlight factors that contribute to competition for public attention and show at what level social media attention relates to donation support.