Digital Storytelling Strategies for Viewer Engagement: A Rhetorical Analysis of YouTube Videos by Nonprofit Healthcare Organizations

As reliance on digital media and social media platforms such as YouTube increases, health organizations infuse rhetorical strategies to create memorable and impactful health-related videos to raise awareness and attract support. Nonprofit healthcare organizations use digital storytelling to communicate their impact. In this study, I conduct a rhetorical analysis of five digital storytelling videos shared on the YouTube pages of nonprofit healthcare organizations to: identify how the videos leverage rhetorical appeals, point-of-view (POV), and metadata; and discuss how such strategies might influence viewer engagement or brand objectives. My findings suggest that nonprofit healthcare organizations integrate positive and negative emotional appeals (pathos) in the videos using first- and third-person POV to capture viewer attention and trigger interactions; build trust and support with expert testimonials and data (ethos and logos); and increase visibility by timing posts around related events (kairos) to potentially increase the persuasiveness of their messages.