Engaging stakeholders on TikTok: A multi‐level social media analysis of nonprofit Microvlogging
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Kimberly Wiley,Kayla Schwoerer,Micayla Richardson,Marlen Barajas Espinosa |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12851 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Engaging stakeholders on TikTok: A multi-level
social media analysis of nonprofit Microvlogging
Kimberly Wiley
1
| Kayla Schwoerer
2
| Micayla Richardson
1
|
Marlen Barajas Espinosa
1
1
Department of Family, Youth, and
Community Sciences, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida, USA
2
Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, New
Jersey, USA
Correspondence
Kimberly Wiley, Department of Family, Youth,
and Community Sciences, University of
Florida, PO Box 110310, Gainesville, FL
32611, USA.
Email: kimberlywiley@ufl.edu
Abstract
Nonprofits are slow adopters of new social media platforms,
yet many have joined TikTok. Successful microvlogging on
sites like TikTok, Instagram, and SnapChat requires different
types of engagement than microblogging on sites like
Facebook and Twitter. The authors conduct a mixed-
method social media analysis to answer three questions: Do
microvlogs support traditional social media functions? How
are nonprofits engaging with stakeholders through
microvlogging? Which function in the hierarchy of engage-
ment framework best engages stakeholders? The authors
qualitatively coded 1160 microvlogs on TikTok from 58 non-
profits. The qualitative dataset was merged with TikTok
metadata to capture quantitative measures of user engage-
ment. Findings indicate nonprofits employ community-
building strategies more than information-sharing and
action strategies. Users engage more often with the non-
profits' community-building microvlogs. The authors con-
clude that nonprofits adapt their strategy to more
effectively engage stakeholders when microvlogging, which
suggests there may be a “new hierarchy”of engagement for
microvlogging platforms.
Received: 30 November 2021 Revised: 24 March 2022 Accepted: 29 March 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12851
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no
modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
822 Public Admin. 2023;101:822–842.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
1|INTRODUCTION
Nonprofits are warming to emerging social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. These platforms
enable users to engage in ways that distinguish the sites from traditional microblogging platforms, like Facebook and
Twitter. For instance, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat offer easy-to-use smartphone applications that allow non-
profits to record, edit, and instantly share brief video blogs, referred to as microvlogs. Instagram and Snapchat have
been among the most widely used microvlogging platforms for some time now. However, TikTok remains one of the
newest social media platforms available. TikTok was the most downloaded app globally in 2020 and hosts over 1 bil-
lion active monthly users, with an overwhelming majority of TikTok users under 30 years of age
1
(Auxier &
Anderson, 2021). Nonprofits looking to engage stakeholders, especially younger people, have an opportunity to
leverage microvlogging platforms to engage a user base that is only continuing to grow. However, nonprofits must
adapt their strategies to this new space to effectively engage with stakeholders.
The design mechanisms of microvlogging platforms place a greater emphasis on user creativity, user-to-user
interaction, and cross-platform sharing, which makes them more conducive to dialogic communication, or meaningful
engagement with users. This design offers nonprofits an opportunity to rethink social media strategies to engage
stakeholders in ways beyond the one-way communication strategies used most often on microblogging sites
(Campbell et al., 2014; Campbell & Lambright, 2020; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Saxton & Waters, 2014; Waters
et al., 2009). Discussion about the effectiveness of social media strategies, predominantly one-way communication
strategies, is ongoing in the literature (Carboni & Maxwell, 2015; Guo & Saxton, 2018) but whether nonprofits adapt
their social media strategies as platforms evolve is an underexplored area of research. This study assesses nonprofit
social media activity to determine if nonprofits are indeed adapting their social media strategy to engage stake-
holders in new ways on mircrovlogging platforms or continuing the traditional approach that relies on one-way
information sharing.
This study addresses three research questions: (1) Do microvlogs support traditional social media functions?
(2) How are nonprofits engaging with stakeholders through the use of microvlogs? (3) Which social media function
more effectively engages stakeholders on TikTok? The authors use mixed methods to analyze nonprofit social media
activity through the lens of the hierarchy of engagement framework developed by Lovejoy & Saxton (hereinafter
referred to as “the framework”) (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). The framework sorts social media strategies into three
categories: information sharing, community building, and mobilizing users to take action. The authors follow the lead
of Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) and Guo and Saxton (2018) methodologically to code nonprofit social media strategies
qualitatively and then analyze user engagement quantitatively.
The unique capacities of TikTok and the newness of microvlogging more broadly require an adaptation of com-
mon social media analysis design. Like content analysis often used on Twitter and Facebook posts, textual analysis
interprets on-screen activity in the short video format of microvlogs (McKee, 2003; Wiley & Evans, 2021). The
research team textually analyzed 1160 microvlogs to identify patterns in the functions of 58 nonprofit TikTok
accounts. Linking post-level textual analysis to case-level characteristics of individual nonprofits allowed researchers
to identify patterns of social media functions in a cross-section of seven nonprofit subsectors. The qualitative analy-
sis of the microvlogs was bridged with a quantitative analysis of user engagement. The findings indicate that non-
profits have adapted their social media strategy to this new social media networking approach. On Tiktok, nonprofits
emphasize community building, and with good reason, the data show that community-building posts increase user
engagement.
This emphasis on community-building behavior in microvlogs makes a strong contribution to nonprofit social
media scholarship as the findings of this study contrast with previous studies also applying the framework. Specifi-
cally, prior studies highlight the one-way information-sharing function of microblogging and show that nonprofits pri-
marily use microblogging platforms to “send”information to stakeholders. These studies support the notion of a
“hierarchy”of engagement in which information sharing remains at the top as the most widely used function. How-
ever, the analysis presented here shows that for microvlogging platforms, community building is the most widely
WILEY ET AL. 823
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