Understanding the information diffusion of tweets of a non-profit organization that targets female audiences: an examination of Women Who Code's tweets

Purpose There is a growing interest in the way non-profit organizations can use Twitter strategically to communicate their message, but little attention has been paid to the way content categories and features may facilitate retweets of messages of a non-profit organization that targets women as its audience. Based on stakeholder theory, this study aims to fill this gap by analyzing Women Who Code (WWC)'s tweets to examine whether there are any differences in the number of retweets with respect to the content categories (information, community or action) and features (hashtags, emojis, photos, videos and URLs) in its Twitter communications. Design/methodology/approach WWC's original tweets that were posted during a one-year period from February 20, 2018 to February 20, 2019 were collected using a Twitter analytics tool. The content categories for each tweet were coded, and the number of hashtags and emojis used and the inclusion of photos, videos and URLs were noted. A negative binomial regression model was used to address the research questions. Findings The findings showed that with respect to the content categories, community and action-based tweets were retweeted less frequently than informational tweets. With respect to the content features, the results showed that using emojis or URLs in a tweet affected retweets positively, while including hashtags or a video affected them negatively. Further, using photos or images in a tweet had no significant effect on retweets. Originality/value These findings contribute to our understanding of non-profit organizations' use of Twitter and provide practical implications for the way non-profit organizations that target female audiences interested in technology can disseminate their messages more strategically.