New insights on how climate movements can use social media to increase public engagement

Recent research conducted by Ganga Shreedhar, Joshua Hinton and Laura Thomas-Walters, in partnership with Extinction Rebellion UK, offers valuable insights into the effectiveness of social media strategies for climate movements. Their randomised controlled field experiment, which reached over 350,000 Facebook users in Birmingham, Oxford and Cardiff, examined which types of messages and images most effectively encourage public engagement with local climate events.

The researchers tested several variables in their Facebook advertisements:

• Message type: Comparing an exhortation (urgent and directive) against a polite request (invitation).
• Imagery: Assessing the impact of protest images, climate impact visuals (such as flooding), and diversity-focused pictures.

Each user was randomly assigned one of these ad variations for one week prior to a local Extinction Rebellion talk in their city.

The study revealed several important findings:

• Exhortation messages outperformed polite requests. This was the case even though earlier focus groups had said that they preferred polite requests, highlighting a mismatch between stated and revealed preferences.
• Climate impact imagery worked better than protest or diversity images.
• Diversity images were less effective, despite their intention to signal inclusivity.
• The combination of exhortation and climate impact imagery generated the strongest results.
• Engagement varied by city, highlighting the importance of adapting communication to context.
• Older users (45+) were more likely to click on the ads. This may reflect both Facebook’s user demographics and older adults’ increasing interest in climate activism.

So, what can climate organisations learn from this study? The findings suggest that organisations can maximise public engagement on social media by pairing urgent, directive messages with impactful climate impact images. The research also highlights the value of testing strategies in real-world settings, as stated preferences do not always translate into effective action.

Shreedhar said: "When we asked people what kind of climate message would motivate them, they said: gentle and polite. But when we tested this on 350,000 people, the opposite was true — urgency won, floods on their doorstep won, being told rather than asked won. To mobilise people on social media, show them why it matters and tell them what to do. Asking nicely backfires."

Read the full open access paper:

Shreedhar, G., Hinton, J. & Thomas-Walters, L. (2026). Tell don’t ask: how to use social media to mobilise local collective climate action. npj Climate Action, 5(21). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-026-00344-8