Jacob Moy
@jacob_moyai
Hey! I'm Jacob, and I'm interested in learning about animal rights.
This page will explain how my experiences with Twitter activism went.
Social media provides a wealth of information not only for research (seeking helpful research organizations, professors, etc.), but also as a means of advocating to a large group of people for a worthy cause.
The Fan Favorite
Given that this tweet performed the best out of all of the posts from this campaign, I decided to do a bit of analysis on what made it such a high performer.
The number one thing I took away from this was my mention of @_HorsesForLife, which grabbed their attention.
As such, they so kindly decided to thank me for the post, r\t me, and like my post. Their retweet showed my post to all of their followers, which is ultimately what made this the highest performing post.
The Scholar's Choice
Though this post did not receive the same level of commendation and attention that the previous post did, it did provide some pointers for me.
Not all clickbait-y titles require all caps to be effective. This one, though a little less eye-grabbing, still outperformed many of the CLICKBAIT titles that I had written previously.
This post received a large amount of attention from my fellow colleagues under the #39canimals tag, which is why I dubbed it “The Scholar’s Choice.”
The American Wild Horse Campaign
The American Wild Horse Campaign is a nonprofit organization that works to reform the federal wild horse and burro roundup programs in an effort to replace it with humane management.
As per their website, they manage the “largest, humane fertility control program for wild, free-roaming horses in the world.”
This tweet of mine garnered the most attention out of any organizational tweet I made (save for The Fan Favorite) and for good reason.
The American Wild Horse Campaign’s tweet that I quoted was captivating, and provided a gateway for students like myself to research.
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If you'd like to visit their twitter, click the image of the twitter post. Otherwise, you can go to their website here.
The Horses For Life Foundation
The Horses For Life Foundation is similar to the AWHC in that they work to stop cruelty towards equines.
Where they differ however, is the Horses For Life Foundation focuses on the abolition of horse slaughter on U.S. soil and to end the live-exporting of American equines across international borders.
This tweet of mine did absolutely terribly in the grand scheme of things. I believe the reason for this is that it wasn’t very eye-catching, as it lacked pictures, and was a huge chunk of text without any clickbait-y titles.
If you'd like to visit their twitter, click the image of the twitter post. Otherwise, you can go to their website here.
Here's the Problem
This tweet showcases my research on the attempted re-legalization of horse slaughter in Wyoming.
I had known about the live-exporting of equines over U.S. borders for slaughter, but to think that people are attempting to reinstitute it in the U.S. is absolutely terrible.
This tweet did not do great, receiving only one like and a handful of tweets, but I think it was a good tweet nonetheless.
The timing, however, was a little off, since I did not post during peak hours.
Equine Denial - A Huge Problem
This tweet showcases my research on domestic horse neglect among abusive owners.
I make a harsh assertion, that “mistake or not, if they [owners] cannot care for their horses, they should not own them,” which is what probably led to the r\t.
A lot of tweets with bold assertions and interesting titles seem to do well, which I realized during my campaign and made sure to continue to do.
Education is the Solution
This tweet lists a great number of helpful Twitter accounts that tackle the issue of equine neglect, as well as a handful of other issues plaguing the domestic and wild equine species.
This tweet did fairly well, as it received a number of likes and r/t’s that fall right in line with the amount of followers I have.
I think that the sharing of resources and the captivating image helped propel this tweet to great success.
Guilt-tripping Over Some Activism
This tweet makes use of as it says in the heading–a little bit of guilt-tripping.
Granted, it is true, people are not very willing to sign a petition nowadays since the ability to do literally anything else is only a button press or click away.
But by guilt-tripping the viewer into at least checking out the cause that I’m promoting, it drives more traffic to my page and to the petition page.
At the end of the day, it’s still guilt-tripping, sure, but for a good cause.
Lastly, the Infographic
The infographic before you now is the summation of all of the research that I have done on wild horses–condensed in a pretty, long, scrollable image.
The main points I was attempting to hit on in this infographic were that horses were being exploited in every possible way imaginable–profiteering, slaughtering, bureaucratically, naturally, and scientifically.
By calling attention to these issues, I hope to enlighten you, viewer, on the pressing significance of helping horses, both wild and domestic.
