Tweet, tweet, tweet: A content analysis of nonprofit organizations’ Twitter updates

Many of the relationship cultivation strategies and the dialogic principles assume symmetrical communication is taking place. However, significant amounts of information are shared in a one-way manner. Although they have fallen out of favor with many academics, the four models of public relations can provide significant insights into how organizations communicate. Using the models as the guiding framework, this brief study examines how nonprofit organizations from the Philanthropy 200 communicate on Twitter. The findings reveal that the organizations are more likely to use one-way models despite the potential for dialogue and community building on the social networking site.

► Nonprofit organizations predominantly use Twitter to convey one-way messages to their followers.
► Of the traditional public relations models, public information was most often used by nonprofits followed by press agentry, two-way asymmetry, and two-way symmetry.
► The lack of conversation continues the line of public relations scholarship showing that the majority of organizations (nonprofit, corporate, government) continue to lack interactivity and engagement on the Internet.