This study aims to answer the question of what makes a nonprofit social media message effective in driving favorable behavioral outcomes from publics. Toward this purpose, it draws on multidisciplinary theoretical insights from public relations literature, functional interactivity research, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing. It theorizes an information-processing account to predict and explain the interplay among social media message appeal (emotional versus informational appeal), functional interactivity (high versus low interactivity), and individuals’ cause involvement (high versus low involvement) on public behavioral outcomes including information sharing, information seeking, and donation intentions. Results of an online experiment revealed significant two-way interactions between message appeal and functional interactivity, between message appeal and cause involvement, and between functional interactivity and cause involvement on different behavioral outcomes. These results bring novel theoretical and practical insights on when, how, and why nonprofit social media communication can be effective.

这项研究旨在回答使非营利性社交媒体信息有效地推动公众获得良好行为结果的问题。为了达到这个目的，它从公共关系文献，功能性交互研究，细化可能性模型和动机介导的消息处理的有限能力模型中汲取了多学科的理论见解。它对信息处理帐户进行理论化处理，以预测和解释社交媒体消息吸引力（情感与信息吸引力），功能互动（高互动与低互动）以及个人对公共行为结果的事业参与（高与低参与）之间的相互作用。信息共享，信息寻求和捐赠意向。在线实验的结果表明，在不同的行为结果上，信息吸引力与功能交互之间，信息吸引力与原因参与之间，以及功能互动与原因参与之间存在着显着的双向交互作用。这些结果带来了关于何时，如何以及为什么非营利性社交媒体交流有效的新颖理论和实践见解。