Organizational Social Media Use and Community Social Capital: Disparities by Poverty and Racial Composition

ABSTRACT Organizations play an essential role in solving community problems and social media facilitates their efforts. This paper illustrates an approach to using the social media data of organizations to observe community-level social capital unobtrusively by comparing communities that differ by racial composition and poverty. Data from the IRS, US Census Bureau, and social media platforms revealed that most nonprofit organizations in a mid-sized city in the South have a social media presence, with Facebook substantially more prevalent than Instagram or Twitter. Disparities based on community poverty and race emerged. Exceptions and implications for practice and future research are discussed.