Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Maddie's Insights: Exploring Factors That Influence Public Engagement of Adoptable Pets on Social Media with Rachel Morrison
Maddie's® Insights is our ongoing webcast series with practical tips based on current research to help pets and people. Our guest speaker for the May 8th program is Rachel Morrison, PhD, Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
This webcast explores how social media content influences engagement with posts about adoptable animals. It highlights findings from a study analyzing Facebook posts from rural shelters, examining how features like photo style, video content, text tone, and animal type impact likes and shares. The study also compares pre-pandemic (2019) and post-pandemic (2020) data, revealing that 2019 posts received more likes, while 2020 posts were shared more. Results suggest that both the type of animal and its depicted environment affect engagement, although further research is needed to link post content directly to adoption rates.
Learning objectives:
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.
To leave a question or comment for Rachel Morrison or Maddie's Fund about this webcast, please visit https://maddies.fund/MIwebcast05082025
Maddie's Insights: Exploring Factors That Influence Public Engagement of Adoptable Pets on Social Media with Rachel Morrison
Maddie's® Insights is our ongoing webcast series with practical tips based on current research to help pets and people. Our guest speaker for the May 8th program is Rachel Morrison, PhD, Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
This webcast explores how social media content influences engagement with posts about adoptable animals. It highlights findings from a study analyzing Facebook posts from rural shelters, examining how features like photo style, video content, text tone, and animal type impact likes and shares. The study also compares pre-pandemic (2019) and post-pandemic (2020) data, revealing that 2019 posts received more likes, while 2020 posts were shared more. Results suggest that both the type of animal and its depicted environment affect engagement, although further research is needed to link post content directly to adoption rates.
Learning objectives:
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.
To leave a question or comment for Rachel Morrison or Maddie's Fund about this webcast, please visit https://maddies.fund/MIwebcast05082025
