Exploring Factors That Influence Public Engagement of Adoptable Pets on Facebook

Recent statistics suggest that the percentage of animals adopted from shelters or rescue organizations is lower than expected, especially given the number of animals available for adoption. To help increase adoption rates, animal shelters often advertise adoptable animals on webpages and social media. However, little research has examined what information may be more successful in increasing engagement and interest in the animals to ultimately lead to adoption. This exploratory study examined posts of adoptable animals on Facebook pages of 13 different animal shelters in the US to better understand how post content, such as pictures or videos, type/sex of animal, and the environment the animals are depicted in, may influence public engagement. We also sought to examine if there was a difference between posts in 2019 (pre-pandemic) compared to 2020 (pandemic). The findings suggest that posts on social media can successfully promote animals available for adoption, but the type of animal (dog vs. cat) and environment (e.g., home vs. other) can influence the likes and shares of the posts. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift to more online activity may have influenced engagement; posts from Fall 2019 had more likes, while posts in Fall 2020 had more shares. Future research should continue to look for trends in the content of posts, as well as content shared on other social media outlets, to provide further clarification about how these posts influence adoptions.