Studies: Effective Corporate Social Advocacy Message Choices and Using Data to Enhance Nonprofit Communication Strategies
Two new studies have found that companies should choose to advocate more explicitly about some issues rather than others and that effective communication can enhance engagement with nonprofits.
In the first study, the findings by University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Public Relations Assistant Professor Christen Buckley and co-authors Holly Overton, Michail Vafeiadis, Pratiti Diddi and Frank E. Dardis are featured in “Examining the Impact of Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) Issue Ownership and Message Content on Authenticity Perceptions and Behavioral Intentions” published in Corporate Communications: An International Journal on Feb. 4.
The authors examined corporate social advocacy message content effect, the level of advocacy and if the message was written in a narrative vs informational style.
According to the authors, “This study examines the role of perceived authenticity and its impact on an individual’s supportive intentions. Results indicate a significant interaction effect of issue by advocacy level on advocating behavioral intentions, megaphoning, brand preference and purchase intention, highlighting that companies should advocate more explicitly about some issues than others.”
In another study, Buckley, Frank Dardis, Prasenjit Mitra, Connor Heaton and Anli Xiao authored “Improving Nonprofit Engagement on Social Media: Using Big Data, Machine-Learning, and Sentiment Analysis to Evaluate Leading Nonprofits’ Message Strategies on Twitter/X” published in the International Journal of Information Technology on Nov. 26, 2024.
The aim of their study was to contribute to the measurement and inference of big data within nonprofit communication research by examining the level of engagement, interactive features and the affective tone of nonprofit Twitter messages from an interdisciplinary perspective.
According to the authors, “The use of big data and sentiment analysis to shape nonprofit organization strategy can provide valuable insights for categorizing and understanding nonprofit communication more holistically. This, in turn, can guide nonprofit organizations in how to successfully and strategically engage with key publics online.”
Posted: February 17, 2025
Category: College News
Tagged as: Christen Buckley, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Corporate Social Advocacy Messages, International Journal of Information Technology, Nonprofit Organizations
