Visual Relationship-Building on Facebook: The Effects of Vertical Camera Angle and Horizontal Camera Angle on User Engagement

Nonprofit organizations have eagerly embraced Facebook as a strategic tool to reach out to their stakeholders and cultivate relationships with them. An important indicator for the success of these relationship-building efforts is the extent to which they foster engagement in the form of likes, comments, and shares (Saxton & Waters, 2014; Smith, 2018). Although Facebook is a predominantly visual media, research on the efficacy of visual relationship-building is scarce (Eftekhar et al., 2014; Smith, 2018). A handful of studies suggests that nonprofit organizations can significantly increase user engagement by adding photos to their posts (Brubaker & Wilson, 2018; Kim & Yang, 2017; Smith, 2018; Strekalova & Krieger, 2017). However, missing from current knowledge is what specific types of photos may facilitate relationship building and boost user engagement.