#Truecolorsday: Analyzing Social Media Participation in a Multi-Platform Advocacy Event

Background and Purpose: Social media has become a critical tool in organizing advocacy campaigns. Across the socio-political spectrum, groups and organizations are using social media to increase issue awareness, exponentiate the reach of their message, recruit support, and plan actions. #TrueColorsDay is an international day to raise public awareness about the issue of homelessness among LGBTQ youth, and to provide supporters with simple ways to make a difference in their home communities. Research indicates that LGBTQ youth are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than non-LGBTQ youth. Once homeless, LGBTQ youth are at heightened risk for a range of negative outcomes across multiple domains. #TrueColorsDay provides an opportunity for individuals and communities to get engaged and involved, and challenges supporters to create safe spaces in their communities for LGBTQ youth.

In April 2018, in addition to using Twitter to hold a global conversation using the campaign hashtag, #TrueColorsDay held eight Facebook Live events, a first in the campaign. The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how the use of Facebook Live events impacted the use of the #TrueColorsDay hashtag on Twitter.    

Methods: The study compares social media participation in #TrueColorsDay on Facebook and Twitter,  and examines the effects of Facebook live events on Twitter hashtag usage. Using Twitter’s filter API, 1,096 tweets using the #TrueColorsDay hashtag were downloaded between April 25^th, 2018 and April 26^th, 2019. A correlated topic model (CTM) analysis examines the general themes of the tweets, while a network analysis of users and retweets examines the relationships in the Twitter community using the #TrueColorsDay hashtag. Eight Facebook Live events were captured manually from the True Colors Fund Facebook page: event start, end and duration times are compared to Twitter hashtag usage times to examine the effect of the Facebook live events on the Twitter conversation. Statistical tests of comparison are run to verify findings.  

Results: Topic model results indicate 45 themes present in the data: topics comprising the largest proportion of tweets indicate an intersectional use of the campaign hashtag. #TrueColorsDay tweets showed connections to foster youth, state specific campaigns, as well as amplifying the message through celebrity endorsements. Network analysis indicates verified Twitter users as key disseminators of main campaign messaging, while statistical tests indicate no significant difference in Twitter hashtag use and Facebook live event timings.     

Conclusions and Implications: The ability of advocacy organizations to win issue campaigns rests on their capacity to build relationships and mobilize constituents. In the age of Web 2.0, much of the early relationship building and initial mobilizing occurs online: current models of organizing do not reflect this development. The current study offers a foundation on which to build new understanding of issue advocacy and organizing for the digital age.