Communication Strategies Of Chinese Organizitions In Social Media

2011was an extraordinary year for the Chinese internet development. Weibo gained historical momentum and gave rise to an online media by providing an unprecedented platform of corruption exposition and social engagement for the Chinese internet users, who also partially utilized the tool for social assistance and charity fundraising on a national scale. Conventional charity organizations are able to engage the audience in their mission with trustworthiness gained through frequent new media communication, which provides the audience with abundant information, interaction, and chances to participate both online and offline.The thesis is intended to find out the communication strategies of Chinese charity organizations in social media. It uses the two case studies of Free Lunch, a Chinese charity organization dedicated to providing lunch fund for rural schools, and One Foundation, a disaster-relief and philanthropic charity organization in Sina Weibo through discourse (tweet) analysis in combination of the Information-Community-Action analytic scheme and the social networking theory that emphasizes the effects of using communication strategies in social networking as prevalent in western literature, in order to verify whether and how the Chinese charity organizations have managed to adopt such strategies.Studies of the research show that Chinese charity organizations utilized the social media as a community building and action engagement tool that emphasizes practical effects, besides simple branding.’Promoting an event’(22.7%),’responses to reply messages’(20.7%),’lobbying and advocacy’(11.5%) and ’giving recognition and thanks’(11.2%) are the top four major communication strategies performed by Chinese charity organizations via tweeting on Sina Weibo.However, findings in this thesis may not be convincing enough as a more quantitative analysis conducted on a huge, more inclusive database might show. Yet it still should be noted that such findings provide sound theoretical and practical indications for future Chinese charity organizations to conduct targeted communication with their stakeholders in an effective, satisfying fashion.