The Use of the Twitter in Public Benefit Organisations in Poland: How Communicative Function of Tweets Translates Into Audience Reaction?

Public benefit organisations (PBOs) constitute a numerous grouping of nonprofit entities in Poland. In the past decade, the number of registered PBOs in Poland has increased 4-fold from 2.2 up to 9,000. In 2015, the number of active PBOs reached 8,800, which accounted for 10% of nonprofit entities eligible for this status. PBOs are marked by a number of special characteristics with the right to receive 1% of personal income tax as one of the most important. The possibility of obtaining this income tax donation is causing growing competitive pressure between the entities conducting socially useful activities. A special market has emerged under this legal act, which can be described as the ‘1% market’ (Czetwertyński 2016). In 2016, nearly 13.2 million taxpayers requested the transfer of 1% of personal income tax to PBO. Revenues from this 1% totalled nearly 618 million PLN which is nearly a 15-fold increase compared to 2005. This amount, however, was not spread evenly between the organisations. The average receipts from 1% of personal income tax per one PBO increased in the past 6 years by nearly 1/4 (from 61,500 PLN to 76,200 PLN), whilst the median decreased (from 5,800 to 5,000 PLN). The stratification of PBOs in terms of received amounts of 1% of personal income tax is clearly increasing, and learning the causes of this phenomenon is particularly important from a research perspective. An important element of the functioning of this type of organisation is the establishment of relationships with various stakeholder groups (this applies especially to those units that try to maximise revenues from the so-called 1%). Social media services, including Facebook and Twitter, can be one of the most useful communication channels in this aspect. The research focused on the organisational use of Twitter. It is the largest microblogging site. Since 2010, the number of Twitter users has increased more than 10 times from 30 million users (number of monthly active users) to 336 million in the first quarter of 2018 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/)

The conducted research in most cases concerned the use of social media services in American nonprofit organisations (e.g. Guidry, Saxton and Messner 2015). There are very few studies covering the countries of Europe (e.g. Uzunoglu and Kip 2014), and domestic scientific literature in this area is modest (e.g. Oliński and Szamrowski 2018). There are almost no studies on the use of social media services by nonprofit organisations and the role they play in building and maintaining relationships with users. In addition, the research focused primarily on large entities with few studies concerning smaller entities. This article is designed to partially fill this gap. Its purpose is to identify the leading function of the content published on Twitter and how it translates into public engagement. Using the typology originally developed by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012), modified for the needs of this research, the following research questions were formulated:

The right to receive 1% income tax from individual persons means that an important element in the current functioning of PBOs is constant communication with stakeholders of the organisation. Ultimately, this may translate into sufficient funds to achieve statutory goals. This dependence on stakeholders is clearly emphasised in the literature of the subject (especially for nonprofit organisations), emphasising the fact that the organisation’s stakeholder is a potential financial donor, a volunteer or just a person supporting ideas associated with a specific organisation (Waters 2008, 2009; Ki and Hon, 2007, 2008). In this context, building and shaping positive relationships is a key condition for the success of the nonprofit organisation and its special form – the PBO.

The diversity of new media instruments has considerably improved the opportunity for nonprofit organisations to communicate with donors as well as volunteers, regulators, the media and the general public (e.g. Huang, Lin and Saxton2016). Through strategically aimed content, organisations can mobilise stakeholders, foster increased accountability, foster public trust and finally build and maintain significant relationships (Saxton and Guo 2011). Online nonprofit-stakeholder relations have successfully become more and more ubiquitous, polymorphic and vital to organisational success.

First, research related to managing relationships within the online environment is focused on analysing organisational websites (Web 1.0). Content analysis is used primarily for this purpose, and the adopted, normative approach assumes that relations should be based on dialogue as the most ethical form of communication (Madichie and Hinson 2014; Hinson, Van Zyl and Agbleze 2014; Ingenhoff and Koelling 2009; Kenix 2007; Kang and Norton 2004; Naudé, Froneman and Atwood 2004).

The results of these studies have indicated that nonprofit organisations only sporadically use websites as strategic, interactive stakeholder engagement tools. This may be due to many reasons, such as the lack of qualified staff, who are experts in creating interactive websites. The arrival of social networking sites such as the very popular Facebook and Twitter have eliminated this excuse. Therefore, public relations practitioners should consider this communication channel as an important tool in reaching a large number of stakeholders. Both platforms are free of charge, and interactivity is their basic feature. Organisations of every size can create a social media profile and build a network of friends or just followers with whom they are in almost real-time contact. The social media platforms have unlocked great opportunities for interpersonal and organisational communication. The authors of this paper have focused their attention on the latter form, that is, the organisational use of social media services. These seem to be a particularly useful tool in building relations with the public, especially with regards to PBO.

Organisational-level research involving the use of social media services in the activities of nonprofit organisations is focused primarily on the organisational use of Facebook. In the context of this type of media, Twitter has been rarely researched. Research into the use of social media in the activities of nonprofit organisations has focused mainly on the scale of their application and analysis of the static elements of the profiles (Oliński and Szamrowski 2018; Messner et al. 2013; Nahand Saxton 2013; Lovejoy, Waters and Saxton 2012; Young 2012; Bortree and Seltzer 2009). There are a few studies describing the character, type and functions of published content and their impact on the level of engagement and responsiveness (Tripathi and Verma 2018; Dhanesh 2017; Belluci and Manetti 2017; Van Wissen and Wonneberger 2017; Huang, Lin and Saxton 2016; Guo and Saxton 2014; Saxton and Waters 2014; Lovejoy and Saxton 2012). The results indicate that in the case of both Facebook and Twitter, nonprofit organisations use them primarily as an information service, and only occasionally use their fully interactive nature.

The earliest research on the functions of the published content was conducted by Lovejoy and Saxton on a sample of the 100 largest non-educational US nonprofit organisations in terms of revenue. On the basis of the analysis of 2,437 tweets, the authors identified 3 basic functions that can be performed by a single tweet, that is, information, community building and call-to-action tweets. Research indicates that only every fourth analysed tweet clearly encourages dialogue (e.g. through a question formulated in the message). Communication based on dialogue is, therefore, not treated by nonprofit organisations as a priority.

Lovejoy and Saxton indicate that the three basic functions of tweets represent a symbolic ‘ladder’ in which information tweets play a key role. They build a base of entities observing the profile of the organisation. Tweets also fulfil the function of community building around the goals pursued by the organisation – it is a higher level of the ladder, because it requires a certain form of engagement on the part of the observer. At the very top of the ladder are tweets that encourage the reader to take a specific action. These are known as ‘call-to-action tweets’ (e.g. a request to transfer money to an organisation or an incentive to work as a volunteer).

Further studies have yielded a more profound image of not only how practitioners build messages but also how the public has responded to them. For example, Saxton and Waters (2014) found that community-oriented messages attracted more likes and comments than informational messages, whilst informational messages generated more shares, on an average, than the other two categories. In studies conducted in 2016, using a sample of organisations operating in the sphere of health protection – mainly related to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prophylaxis and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) treatment (e.g. Huang, Lin and Saxton 2016), the results also indicated that some specific types of messages brought on better audience engagement than others.

Studies conducted by Tripathi and Verma (2018) were one of the few that concerned nonprofit organisations other than American. They focused on nonprofit organisations operating in India and explored major determinants of nongovernment organisations engagement and relationship building on social media sites including Twitter. The results suggest that stakeholders engage with organisations mainly for personal and organisational reasons. Emotions, trust and information needs emerge as the primary personal drivers for engagement, whereas organisational accountability, performance, brand image and transparency emerge as organisational drivers. Behavioural intention mediates the relationship between the drivers of engagement and supporter contributions. The authors also suggests that as the number of supporters on social media platforms is rapidly increasing, nonprofit organisations should identify the importance of the supporter experience whilst designing their relation building strategies.

The results of the study unveiled how Polish PBOs use Twitter and shed light as to what extent tweets were able to effectively elicit a public response in the form of liking, commenting and retweeting. The results indicate that Twitter in Polish PBOs is of minor importance. Almost half of the organisations, despite having a profile on Twitter, did not publish any content during the analysed period, and in the case of almost 30% of organisations, this frequency was not more than 6 tweets in 14 days. In total, the test sample consisted of 981 tweets, which primarily served an information function. The share of the other two main categories was similar. The size of the organisation had a significant impact on the percentage structure in the primary function area of the tweet. The largest organisations, with annual revenues of more than 10 million PLN, published tweets with a call-to-action character much more often than in the case of other smaller organisations. The share of this category of tweets was declining as the income level decreased and stabilised only in organisations with an annual income below 1 million PLN. Explanations for this phenomenon can be found in the work of Guo and Saxton (2014), who built an original ‘pyramid’ model of social-media-based advocacy. To quote:

Compared to others, the largest Polish PBOs had a much larger number of followers. The average number of followers in this set of organisations amounted to 4,438; in the group of organisations with revenues from 1 to 10 million PLN, their average was 1,289 observers; in the organisational group with an income from 100,000 to 1 million PLN, their average was 732; and in the smallest organisational group, their average was only 329. Consequently, the largest organisations have shifted their focus to tweets having the nature of a call for action. With a few exceptions, other organisations in the Twitter environment remain at the first stage in the model of ‘reaching out to people’. There were also only a few organisations whose main purpose was in using Twitter content for community building. Only eight organisations whose share of tweets in this category was the largest were identified, of which the share in five organisations exceeded 50%. In summary, with the exception of the largest organisations the Twitter profile of PBOs was primarily focused on the information function and, hence, on one-way communication. There are very few tweets with the nature of a call to work as a volunteer, even though the vast majority of organisations in the annual activity report showed that they use the services of volunteers. With the exception of the largest organisations, the share of tweets encouraging donations to the organisation was also low. An explanation for this phenomenon may be associated with a small number of profile observers in smaller organisations.

The statistical tests performed indicate that regardless of the primary function of a tweet, they generate the same chance of being liked or commented on. Only tweets with a primary call-to-action function received significantly more retweets than those with a community and information focus. This situation was mainly observed in tweets related to lobbying for the organisation. They concerned issues of social importance, for example, related to the protection of the independence of courts in Poland, or the protection of conceived life, and they were clearly more frequently retweeted from other subcategories.

When looking at the categories within the community building primary function of the tweet, the results were obtained, indicating that they generate the same low level of public response in all three analyzed areas: average number of likes, comments and retweets. This finding indicates that communication based on dialogue does not need to be treated as a priority in nonprofit organisations (at least in those with a small number of followers, as with Polish organisations on Twitter). All information subcategories yielded an equal likelihood for tweets to be commented on. However, the frequency of retweets and favourites did produce a significant result: informational tweets with a marketing and public education focus received significantly more retweets and favourites than others from that primary function.

This paper has mainly practical implications. Twitter from the organisational point of view seems to be a useful communication tool, especially in nonprofit organisations that face numerous barriers, primarily of a financial nature. Its practicality is connected above all with simplicity and relatively low costs of use, simultaneously creating new possibilities for organisations to engage their audience. However, the majority of people responsible for managing social media channels in Polish PBOs struggle with the pressure to re act in a short time and to be accurate, informative and usable with only 140 characters at one’s disposal (currently 280 characters). This is indicated by the low frequency of published content by Polish PBOs. In addition, the majority of Twitter users in such kind of organisations are the so-called passive users. This is indicated by a small number of likes, retweets and especially comments on the published content. The concept of passive user uses Dhanesh and his model of engagement. Dhanesh identified three levels of engagement, that is, affective, cognitive and behavioural (2017). The research results indicate that engagement amongst Twitter users in Polish PBOs is primarily limited to the first two levels, that is, cognitive and affective ones. The three-level understanding of the concept of engagement raises serious practical implications for managers, showing them the potential directions of actions enabling more effective use of Twitter in activities related to Public Relations (PR). In the case of the organisations surveyed, the people responsible for managing this channel must make efforts to build active and sufficiently large the followers base. At present, it is so small that the chances of appearing of the so-called social media influencers (SMIs) are also small. SMIs are people on the third level of engagement of the Dhanesh pyramid (behavioural level). They are the most important way of building positive relationships between the organisation and audience, mainly by commenting on the published content and disseminating it amongst other network users. A very modest number of comments in the tweets covered by the analysis indicate that the number of SMIs on Twitter profiles of Polish PBOs is minimal. Acquiring followers can be done in various ways, the most important of which is related to the publishing of content on the profile important for the audience. In addition, organisations can use traditional communication channels for this purpose, as well as other online channels such as a website or Facebook. The fact that PBOs have a Twitter profile should be assessed negatively, whilst leaving it in a state of complete lack of publishing activity. The research results indicate that the number of such organisations was large. In this case, having Twitter profiles can bring more damage to the organisation than benefits.

Research focused on the analysis of functions performed by tweets allowed to construct a concise list of best practices for the field, enabling the adaptation of published content to the type of engagement desired by PR practitioners. First, publishing important information tweets from the point of view of the recipient can directly translate into acquiring a larger followers’ base. The bigger this base is, the higher is the probability of SMI appearance, as was already mentioned above. Only a clear increase in the followers’ base should prompt Polish PBOs to put more emphasis on tweets from call to action and community building categories. Within information category, PR practitioners should put more emphasis on marketing tweets instead of public education and organisational news tweets. Marketing tweets are more likely to be retweeted and favourited by the audience. Second, if the people responsible for managing this channel want to increase the frequency of retweets and likes, they should put more emphasis on lobbying and advocacy tweets within call-to-action category and on response solicitation tweets from community building category.

The main objective of the research was to better comprehend what types of Twitter messages exert the greatest level of audience engagement for specific type of nonprofit organisations called public benefit organisations. In Poland background, to the authors knowledge, this study was the first attempt to research how nonprofits’ audience react to the tweets they get. The main research effort focused on identifying the dominant function performed by a single tweet and its impact on audience reaction in the form of likes, retweets and comments. After analysing 981 tweets by 186 PBOs, it was not possible to identify the ‘perfect’ tweet, that is, one that triggered all types of engagement. What’s more, the average number of comments as the most important form of the recipient’s involvement was independent of the tweet’s primary and secondary function. Only the statistical relationship between the communicative function of the tweet and the average number of likes and retweets was identified, although, in this case, only in a few subcategories. Although the average duration of the Twitter profile amongst the surveyed organisations is almost 4.5 years, it still suffers from ‘childhood sickness’ struggling with a small followers’ base, which is clearly dominated by passive users. Twitter in Polish PBOs fulfils in fact only a complementary role compared to the much more popular Facebook.

To sum up, regardless of the size of the organisation, the interactive nature of Twitter is not fully used in Poland PBOs.

The performed research had some limitations. Future research could inquire more thoroughly with deeper message categories. Some tweets from subcategories caused problems in proper classification. For example, promotional event and organisational news overlapped with promotional event and acknowledgement of current/local events. Another issue was related to the use of a number of comments for the public responses estimation. These comments do not need to have a positive overtone or be in line with the organisational message. Therefore, it seems necessary to carry out research to determine the sentiment articulated in these public comments.