Helping the World One ‘Like’ at a Time: The Rise of the Slacktivist

Abstract

Much like the corporate sector, the charity and non-profit sector has adopted social media as one of their core engagement and fundraising tools. The online community has great power and has worked well for many brands; however, the extent to which this is benefitting the third sector is debatable. Is liking a non-profit organization on Facebook equal to donating money or running a marathon? A consumer’s online interaction with a charity, e.g. liking or sharing social media content and pages, is sometimes referred to as ‘slacktivism’. To date, studies on ‘slacktivist’ behavior in the social media context are limited to few conceptual papers. This study provides empirical insights into motivations and interactions of social media users towards non-profit and charity-related social media campaigns.