Maddie's Insights: Exploring Factors That Influence Public Engagement of Adoptable Pets on Social Media
The use of social media platforms to advertise adoptable animals has increased throughout the years. The content of these posts (e.g., photos, videos, text) may increase post engagement (e.g., likes and shares) and ultimately animal adoptions. Few studies have examined which characteristics of post content successfully increases engagement. This talk will give background information regarding the online promotion of adoptable animals and will focus on the results of our recent study that analyzed the Facebook posts of several rural animal shelters to determine whether certain types of content (e.g., style/features of photos and videos, subject/tone of text, type/sex of animal, etc.) influenced engagement. We also had the opportunity to compare differences between posts in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (post-pandemic). The results of this study suggest that the type of animal and the environment in which the animals were depicted can influence likes and shares of posts. It was also discovered that posts in 2019 received more likes, while posts in 2020 received more shares. Although the findings of this study support the use of social media to increase the engagement of posts depicting adoptable animals, more research is needed to determine how the content of posts directly influence adoption rates.
Attendees will learn about:
1. the online promotion of adoptable animals and the features that have previously been linked to increased adoptions.
2. using social media platforms to increase public engagement of adoptable animals. Specifically, what features of post content may have an influence.
3. questions that have yet to be answered. Topics of future exploration will be suggested.
Earn continuing education credit from The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement towards 1.0 CAWA CEs. This webinar has also been pre-approved for 1.0 continuing education credits by the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA). It has also been approved for 1 hour of continuing education credit between 11/13/24 - 11/13/26 in jurisdictions which recognize RACE approval. Complete the quiz to earn continuing education credit.
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Guest Speaker:
Rachel Morrison, Ph.D. (she/her)
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Dr. Rachel Morrison received her B.S. in Biology with a concentration in animal biology and a minor in Psychology from Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI). She received her M.A. in Psychology with a certification in Animal Behavior and Conservation from Hunter College of CUNY and her Ph.D. in Psychology with a concentration in Biopsychology from The Graduate Center of CUNY (New York, NY). Dr. Morrison is currently an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where she teaches Introductory Psychology, Research Methodology, Animal Cognition and Behavior, and Biopsychology.
Dr. Morrison’s research interests include animal behavior, animal cognition, animal welfare, and human-animal relationships. She has conducted research with diverse species in multiple locations and contexts including field research, lab studies, and studies of animals housed in zoological (e.g., whispering in cotton-top tamarin monkeys) and aquarium (e.g., the development of mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins) settings. In addition, Dr. Morrison has investigated factors that influence college students’ attitudes towards animal use and the relationship between pro-welfare attitudes and perceptions of animal thinking, as well as links between college student pet attachment and the quality of care given to pets. More recently she has explored the use of social media (i.e., Facebook) by local animal shelters to promote adoptable animals and the impact of a miniature horse-assisted intervention on college student mood and optimism her PhD and MA degrees in the behavioral neuroscience and comparative psychology program at Arizona State University in the Canine Science Collaboratory.
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