Aristotle on social media? : Investigating non-profit organizations’ usage of persuasive language in their posts on Twitter and Facebook

Abstract: This study investigates how non-profit organizations market their organizations and persuades their audience on two different social media platforms. The aim is to examine four non-profit organizations’ use of persuasive language in their Facebook and Twitter posts.  in their Facebook and Twitter posts on their social media pages. The aim is to understand if, how and what linguistic means was are used in the posts through Aristotle’s triangle of rhetoric. His theory consists of the three appeals: ethos, logos and pathos. These three appeals all holds a number of individual features.  with a perspective from classic rhetoric, namely Aristotle’s triangle of rhetoric. The persuasion was examined using Aristotle’s triangle of rhetoric and its appeals ethos, logos, and pathos. The research was carried out by classifying the posts by the three appeals and their features. These defined what linguistic means were used and how. All three appeals are equally important when persuading an audience  public through a text as they are necessary to raise an understanding and interest to the text’s focus. Aristotle argued that when including all three appeals, the text has reached its full extent potential of persuasion. The appeals have their unique attributes and may also persuade when used individually. The An author’s credibility and trust applies to the appeal ethos, logic and reasoning in a of the text applies to logos, and a text that moves its reader’s emotions applies to pathos. The research resulted that aWhether a text’s length matters for its persuasion through a comparison of  the two social media platformshas also been examined through comparing the two social media platformsw. Non-profit organizations do not strive for any profit which make it a challenge for them how to market persuade their organization audience in order and actually be able to be able to continue their work. Many of the posts researched included the appeal pathos which aim mainly to evoke emotions with the readers.