Justifying the ROI of social media investment in education

To invest or not to invest? In the context of Higher Education, the decision around social media adoption is ultimately driven by the end users—students—increasingly demanding in their expectations of technology support provided by universities. This presents a new set of challenges to HE institutions of how to effectively adopt social media in a range of modes provided to students, alumni, external stakeholders, etc. This chapter sets the agenda for future research into methods of measuring effectiveness of social media applications in Higher Education. Drawing on a rich account of social media applications throughout the entire student lifecycle, the chapter identifies common objectives to social media campaigns and uses in educational settings. A framework for social strategy adoption by HE institutions is proposed for further empirical testing. The chapter provides an approach to measuring the effectiveness of social media in higher education and offers practical recommendations and identifies areas needing future research

Evaluating Social Media

Despite the widespread adoption and popularity of social media, research on measuring the quantifiable impact of popular social media platforms remains scarce.To this end, this study attempts to investigate how the influence of social media can be assessed in quantitative terms.The main objective is to develop a new assessment model able to integrate a broad range of criteria such as likes, subscribers, comments, posts, shares, and links.The authors extend previous assessment models focused on individual platforms such as blogs and propose a Social Media Influence Assessment model (SMIA). The process of model development—criteria, dimensions, and formula—and its validation are discussed. The results indicate that social media's influence can be measured in a structured, quantifiable manner by utilising a set of nine criteria grouped into three dimensions: recognition, activity generation, and credibility