Background: Central to raising awareness of ageism are advocacy organizations dedicated to serving the needs and interests of older adults. Although many of these organizations have cultivated an online presence, inquiry into the effectiveness of age advocacy work on social media remains an untapped area. Our foray into this topic explores how different tweet features predict the level of engagement of posts uploaded by age advocacy organizations on Twitter. Methods: Tweets (N = 403,426) were collected from 53 accounts and spanned 12 years from July 2009 to October 2021. After applying our exclusion criteria, 204,905 tweets were retained for analysis. We analyzed the tweet features (predictors) and engagement level (outcome variable) using a linear mixed-effects model.Results: Tweets with higher engagement are those with a URL, with at least three hashtags, with visuals (GIF, photo, or video), which are quote tweets, and which are posted in the evening or at night Central Standard Time (CST), adjusting for account-level variables (e.g., follower count). Conversely, tweets with more than one mention, which are replies and which are uploaded in the morning are associated with lower engagement. Conclusion:The rise of digital media means that advocates have the opportunity to communicate their messages to reach a critical mass. This is the first known study to offer an evidence-informed playbook for age advocacy organizations to optimize outreach efforts by maximizing online engagement. These results represent a crucial step in ongoing efforts to tackle ageism, an issue that has long been under-discussed.
BACKGROUND Ageism has long manifested itself as one of the most pervasive yet least acknowledged forms of prejudice. However, the issue has slowly been gaining some long overdue recognition in public discourse. Over the last decade, many organizations aimed at serving the needs and interests of older adults have turned to social media platforms such as Twitter to improve the visibility of age-related issues. However, notwithstanding their growing presence and participation online, minimal attention has been paid to the use of social media among age advocacy groups. To achieve policy change, age advocacy organizations must first be able to mobilize audiences. OBJECTIVE Our study elucidates features of tweets that are associated with time to peak engagement. METHODS We collated 204,905 tweets spanning 12 years and from 53 organizations. Engagement score of each tweet was calculated through established metrics (e.g., summing up of likes, retweets, etc). We ran Cox models with tweet features as predictors, and ‘time-to-peak-engagement’ as the outcome. ‘Peak engagement’ (event) refers to engagement scores above the 75th percentile, and ‘time’—months/tweet to reach peak engagement. RESULTS As hypothesized, tweet features associated with peak engagement are inclusion of three/more hashtags (p < .001), visual elements—e.g., photos increased a tweet’s ability to reach peak engagement by over 4 times (p < .001); quote tweets increased engagement by 3 times (p < .001), compared to regular tweets, controlling for account-level covariates. Conversely, tweets from organizations with higher tweet volume were 40% less likely to reach peak engagement (p < .001), suggesting the value of selective tweeting. CONCLUSIONS Social media is an important catalyst for policy action. In enabling timely dissemination of ideas among users, social media has the potential to reach users on a global scale and at an exponential speed. Having delineated the strategies for peak engagement on Twitter, our study provides an invaluable resource for age advocacy organizations in their important movement to combat ageism.
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