Looking for Friends, Fans, and Followers? Social Media Use in Public and Nonprofit Human Services

Abstract

Th is article uses interviews and Internet data to examine social media use among nonprofi t organizations and county departments involved in the delivery of human services in a six-county area in south-central New York State. Social media use was modest, with nonprofi t organizations much more likely to use it than county departments. Organizations used social media primarily to market organizational activities, remain relevant to key constituencies, and raise community awareness. Most organizations either had a narrow view of social media's potential value or lacked a long-term vision. Barriers to use included institutional policies, concerns about the inappropriateness of social media for target audiences, and client confi dentiality. Findings build on recent research regarding the extent to which nonprofi t organizations and local governments use social media to engage stakeholders. Future research should investigate not only the diff erent ways organizations use social media but also whether organizations use it strategically to advance organizational goals.

Does Twitter Increase Perceived Police Legitimacy?

“…Open government increases the opportunity for public scrutiny but also, at the same time, strengthens its capacity to shape public relations. For some police departments, this is exactly the reason for wanting to use social media (Meijer and Thaens ; see also Campbell, Lambright, and Wells ). Possibly, journalists remain the main followers of Twitter accounts of local police departments and use information from Twitter to report on crimes and police behavior.…”

“…Many authors have explored social media from the perspective of government organizations (e.g., Bertot, Jaeger, and Grimes 2010;Campbell, Lambright, and Wells 2014;Crump 2011;Mergel 2013;Mossberger, Wu, and Crawford 2013). Th ese analyses treat social media use as a strategic choice by government organizations, but it is important to note that the pattern of social media use results from the actions of both governments and citizens.…”

“…However, communication may also take the form of informing, such that Social media use by public organizations has attracted the attention of scholars. Mossberger, Wu, and Crawford (2013), for example, have studied the increased adoption of Facebook and Twitter in local governments, and various scholars have shown how social media can be used strategically (Campbell, Lambright, and Wells 2014;Mergel 2013;Mergel and Bretschneider 2013). However, the literature is still scant as to the eff ects of social media on citizens' attitudes and, specifi cally, on perceived legitimacy.…”

Online boundary work tactics: an affordance perspective

“…However, this is the exception; their job did not include using their personal profiles but they were supposed to keep track of the organisation's official accounts. Some research has investigated the use of social media for engagement and outreach (Briones et al, 2011;Lovejoy et al, 2012;Nah and Saxton, 2013;Campbell et al, 2014) but without a fine-grained analysis of individual employees' use of social media for their organisation.…”

Wasting time on facebook?

“…Drawing from the current literature on social media use in local governments and previous studies on perceived usefulness of new technologies, we expect that both social, organizational and individual factors will shape local managers' experiences with social media. In particular, the diffusion of social media usage, the presence of social media policies or guidelines, and the technology capacity of the organization will positively affect the usefulness of social media for local manager outcomes [10] [2] . On the other hand, security concerns will negative affect the perceptions of local managers, who will be more reluctant to use social media in face of the risk of negative outcomes [11] (Kavanaugh et al 2012).…”