Inspiring action through social media

Social media provides the opportunity to reach many people and is a popular tool for creating social change. Many nonprofits and leaders of social movements use social media to gain support for their causes and engage allies. However, we know little about what type of content best engages potential followers. To better understand what a media user needs to post, one must consider the link between emotion and action and how this is impacted by emotion regulation when faced with issues of mass suffering. This study examined content that elicited emotions and action via the social media platform Instagram. We found promoting positive, emotionally charged images garnered a greater amount of social media activity than negatively, emotionally charged images. These findings suggest how social issue-driven organizations could better use social media to gain support for their causes.