An investigation of the online presence of UK universities on Instagram

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Emerald Publishing Limited in Online Information Review on 01/08/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-02-2016-0057 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Purpose – Rising tuition fees and a growing importance on league tables has meant that university branding is becoming more of a necessity to attract prospective staff, students, and funding. Whilst university websites are an important branding tool, academic institutions are also beginning to exploit social media. Image-based social media services such as Instagram are particularly popular at the moment. It is therefore logical for universities to have a presence on popular image-based social media services such as Instagram. This paper investigates the online presence of UK universities on Instagram in an initial investigation of use. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study utilizes webometric data collection, and content analysis methodology. Findings – The results indicate that at the time of data analysis for this investigation (Spring, 2015), UK universities had a limited presence on Instagram for general university accounts, with only 51 out of 128 institutions having an account. The most common types of images posted were humanizing (31.0%), showcasing (28.8%), and orienting (14.3%). Orienting images were more likely to receive likes than other image types, and crowdsourcing images were more likely to receive comments. Originality/Value – This paper gives a valuable insight into the image posting practices of UK universities on Instagram. The findings are of value to heads of marketing, online content creators, social media campaign managers, and anyone who is responsible for the marketing, branding, and promoting of a university’s services

Personal branding for academic faculty: a new social phenomenon for Russian higher education?

The paper reports the results of a pilot study on the extent to which academic faculty at Rus-sian higher education institutions engage in personal branding. The paper places personal branding in the context of an increased reliance on social media by Russian higher educa-tion institutions and examines the question of whether personal branding might be conducive to academic faculty’s career advancement. Employing analysis of publicly available data, the authors demonstrate that leading Russian universities use social media to raise their pro-file. Analysis of the Facebook, Instagram and vk social media accounts of academic faculty at a prominent Russian university demonstrated that almost a third of academic faculty en-gaged in personal branding to some extent, and almost 7% engaged in strategic personal branding. This was limited, however, to senior faculty members and it is unclear whether their strategic personal branding impacts on their career advancement or is merely reflec-tive of it. It remains to be seen whether this trend will ‘trickle down’ and become more prev-alent among Russian academic faculty

The impact of covid-19 and digital transformation on the marketing and communication strategies of higher education institutions, in relation to student recruitment

Where the Coronavirus pandemic has interrupted face to face delivery of university student recruitment events, whether large scale external events or internal events, digital channels appear to have been utilised as the main form of communication to engage prospective students. However, what is unclear is to what extent COVID-19 and digital transformation have impacted the marketing and communication strategies of HE institutions and whether other universities have had to increase their social media presence and online resources and recruitment events more than others. The thesis finds that COVID-19 has ultimately acted as a catalyst for digital transformation, allowing universities more flexibility to move their marketing and communication strategies online through virtual activities and events, as well as through greater use of image and video content across webpages and social media. Factors considered include reflecting the differences and extent of digital transformation between Russell Group and Non-Russell Group universities. The target audience majority of ‘digital natives’ is also considered as a reason for this accelerated effect of digital transformation, with COVID-19 allowing an opportunity to adhere to their demands. Their familiarity and accessibility to online information is an important rationale for HE institutions to create content on digital platforms and move away from paper communications and marketing material – a strategy that will remain in future student recruitment

Platforms matter: analyzing user engagement with social media content of Swiss higher education institutions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) increasingly use social media to communicate with stakeholders and the public. The success of these efforts on individual platforms has been assessed by a growing number of studies recently. However, comparative research across different platforms and types of HEIs is lacking. This study analyzes factors influencing user engagement across different HEI types and the three most widely used platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter). The study relies on a full sample of all social media posts published in 2019 (n = 42,006) by all 42 Swiss HEIs. Hereof, a random sample of 1500 posts per platform was manually coded. Several factors at the content-level turned out to vary across platforms, thereby pointing to the need for HEIs to tailor their social media communication to the respective affordances of different platforms. However, results also show patterns across platforms, including the importance of visual communication and the development of a large followership for driving user engagement. In contrast, we found no impact of publishing time, publishing frequency, and content length. This, among other findings, indicates that strategies focused on creating high-quality content rather than a large quantity of content yield better engagement results for the social media communication of HEIs

Examining the Effects among Motivation Needs, Satisfaction, and Instagram Continuance Intention in Malaysian Students

While social media platforms, notably Instagram, have gained traction among university students, this study sought to understand factors influencing their continued use among a segment of Malaysian university students. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the role of satisfaction (SAT) as a mediator in the relationship between various types of motivational needs and the continued intention (CI) to use Instagram. The motivational needs under study included cognitive needs (CN), affective needs (AN), personal integrative needs (PIN), social integrative needs (SIN), and escape needs (EN). This research was built on the foundations of the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) and Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT). Using a non-probablistic sampling strategy, this study gathered data via questionnaires from a sample of 384 students from six selected universities in Klang Valley. Within the scope of the research sample, a key finding emerged: SAT notably mediates the relationship between CN, SIN, PIN, and CI. This finding illustrates the pivotal role of SAT in the context of UGT and ECT, suggesting that SAT derived from Instagram usage is a critical factor in explaining the sustained engagement of university students, based on specific motivational needs. Within the context of this study's sampled participants, this result offers insights into how SAT, influenced by distinct motivational needs, may impact the intention to continue using Instagram. In practical terms, these insights may assist social media platform developers and educational institutions in understanding and addressing the satisfaction and engagement levels of university users. Simultaneously, the quota sampling strategy employed in this study serves as a valuable model for future research in similar contexts. However, this study recommend that future research expand the sample to include a broader cross-section of Malaysian university students to enhance representativeness and generalizability

An Assessment of the University Usage of Social Media Platforms: Case from Lebanon—Theoretical Foundations—Part 1

This paper, part of two, aims to assess how a selection of Lebanese Universities utilizes social media platforms to attract potential student candidates. Social Media is considered a significant recruitment tool universities use to attract high school graduates from the millennium digital generation. Different universities have dealt differently with social media, so capturing recorded activity is essential to assess such efforts and pinpoint gaps to justify student recruitment investments by universities. This study uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. A descriptive comparative analysis is carried out based on collected data from the different university social media platforms to help categorize selected universities in their efforts, successes, and gaps. However, this paper, the first part of two, represents the theoretical foundations needed for the study. Paper part two (2) will follow to illustrate the numerical and graphical analysis. Results show a lack of motivation schemes to attract potential candidates and encourage them to interact with such platforms. Moreover, universities lack specialized digital marketing staff to produce the appropriate content and design marketing strategies that are attractive, interactive, and with high response rates to inquiries

Research, Literacy, and Communication Education: New Challenges Facing Disinformation

The information that comes through digital media and social networks is increasing. This potential access to almost infinite information makes it difficult to select relevant content with a good understanding. It is therefore necessary to generate research that thoroughly analyses the phenomenon of communication and information in the digital age. For this reason, this monograph presents different research studies that highlight the need for greater media literacy and education in order to prevent the existence and dissemination of fake news. Citizens must know how to deal with disinformation and be able to detect the source of bad intentions behind information. Therefore, people need to be aware of the new communication challenges in order to determine what is important, which media they can trust, and where information has been misused or manipulated. In conclusion, society must be prepared to face new challenges related to misinformation. An educated and digitally literate society will be able to face these problems and be prepared to face the new communication challenges, including interaction with social networks, new audiences, new media, fake news, etc

Social networks and open innovation: business academic productivity

Is there any type of relationship between the academic productivity of business researchers and their social networking activity? What does this mean in terms of open innovation? With these objectives, in this paper we have focused on the Technology Acceptance Model and the concept of performativity, filling the gap that exists in the current scientific literature. At the empirical level, we carried out a review of 211 articles from the Web of Science (SSCI), obtaining a total set of 12,939 data points. Our statistical model has showed a clear symbiotic relationship between productivity in Google Scholar and presence in ResearchGate. Furthermore, researchers with a greater presence on LinkedIn or Twitter have low Google Scholar or Web of Science h-indices. We concluded that there is currently a dissociation between academic and professional online networks, something that does not help the applicability of research in business and society, the enduring aim of any search for knowledge. Information Science can play an important role in helping to bridge the gap between academia and the real world. Furthermore, in order to contribute to enhancing the role of universities in open innovation practices, it is essential to design and implement new tools such as online communities that stimulate interaction and facilitate network effects