The Place of Social Media in the Practice of Public Relations in Higher Education
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study are:
- To examine the contribution of social media to the practice of public relations in Delta State University and Novena University
- To determine the frequency of usage of social media by public relations officers at Delta State University.
- To ascertain the challenges of social media in public relations practices of Delta State University.
- To determine the prospect of social media in the practice of public relations.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Decision making
Decision-making is defined as “the act of choosing one alternative from a set of alternatives” (Griffin, 2007, p. 96). This, however, is not the definition of decision- making process, which is broader in scope and context. Thus, Griffin (2007) states decision-making process “includes recognizing and defining the nature of a decision situation, identifying alternatives, choosing the best alternative, and putting it into practice.” This definition is highly applicable to the context of higher education. Maringe and Carter (2007), on the other hand, define decision-making as a complicated process that requires and entails numerous, often elevated phases undertaken by a student who plans to attend college. As Hanson (2005) states, the main goal of decision-making process is to make a final decision or choice between an array of available or alternative options.
Over the years, the university and course decision-making process has been influenced by many attributes at the pre-search and search stages. Traditional information sources such as brochures, education exhibitions, websites, parent, friend and peer influence have been dominant. The advent of social media now presents another information source for university and course choice and decision-making in a different way – through collaborating, communicating and through community interaction. The theoretical models presented in the next section explore the origins and developments of the decision-making process.
Theoretical Models
Several theoretical models describe the factors that influence student’s intention to further their study at a specific university. Although these models may have been formulated many years ago, preceding the Internet era, they are still valid in the context of and as a basis to explore the evolution of factors influencing decision-making. For instance, the characteristics described in Hanson & Litten’s (1984) Model of College Choice are also mentioned in recent studies by Chen & Zimitat (2006), Mazzarol & Soutar (2006) and Pimpa (2003). The conceptual approaches that describe the college choice process and factors that lead students to their college choice can be found in three models (Hossler et al, 1989): Economic models; Sociological models; and Combined models
Economic Models
Economic models emphasize choice between enrolment in a college or university and the pursuit of a non-collegiate alternative. Economists are interested in the relationships between the attributes of “goods” (e.g. college and job characteristics) and individual choices (Jackson, 1982). Generic research indicates that individuals will select a particular college or university if the benefits of attending outweigh the perceived benefits of attending a non-college alternative (Hossler, Braxton, & Coopersmith, 1985). Economic models also emphasize the rational decision-making process of students and their families and the variety of ways in which different student’s rate and use the college attributes to make their final college choice (Hossler, Schmit, & Vesper, 1999).
Jackson’s (1982) model proposes that students’ college choices involve three stages. In the preference stage, a student’s educational aspirations and attitudes about college enrolment, is shaped by his or her level of academic achievement, family background and social context (e.g., the influence of peers, neighbourhood, and school). In the exclusion stage, the student goes through a process of eliminating some institutions from the prospective list. Tuition fees, location, and academic quality are among the factors that may be considered in eliminating higher education institutions. Finally, in the evaluation stage, students are faced with a choice set of institutions before they make their final choice.
Sociological Models
Sociological models were developed from educational and status attainment research, focusing on the aspirations of individuals desiring to pursue a Higher Education Institution. These models specify a variety of social and individual factors leading to a student’s occupational and educational aspirations (Jackson, 1982). Sociological models of college choice (Hossler, Braxton, & Coopersmith, 1985) have focused on the identification and interrelationship of factors including parental encouragement (Sewell & Shah, 1978), influence of significant others (Chapman, 1981) and academic performance (Sewell, Haller, & Portes, 1969) as indicators of enrolment in universities. Chapman’s (1981) model of student choice focused on the characteristics of prospective student & student’s family) and the characteristics of his/her college, which he identifies as cost, location, and availability of the program. More importantly it identifies influencers in the decision making process – the school counsellor, teachers, friends, and parents.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
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This study adopted descriptive research design. Descriptive studies are concerned with finding out who, what, where, when, and how much. They tried to measure the types of activities, how often, when, where and by whom. According to Gill & Johnson (2006), descriptive surveys are interested in addressing specific characteristics of a selected population of subjects at a point in time, or at varying times for the purpose of comparing the relationship between variables.
Descriptive research is closely linked to qualitative research because of the in-depth description it aims to achieve from the study. It wanted to provide accurate description of observations of phenomena.
Population
The target population of the study were the marketing management of Delta state University and students in the study area.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT PRESENTATION
Demographic Information
The study sought to find out the demographic information of the respondents which included gender, level of education, years of interaction with the social media platforms and age of the respondents. The findings of the study are discussed in the subsections below.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Discussion of findings
The first study objective was to determine if students use social media for university and course selection. Survey findings indicate that social media that have significant following and student profiles include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and other social media. This study literature found that that these social media are used for university course recruitment online or for preliminary information search before the prospective students visit the institution in person (Chen & Zimitat, 2006).
The data analysis suggests that students use both traditional information sources as much as they use social media. However it is not evident that one exerts more influence than the other. This finding is in contrast with what one would expect considering the high popularity of social media amongst high school students and teenagers and the prolific use of social media amongst this group. While this discrepancy requires a more thorough investigation, there are a number of possible explanations that can form the basis of a number of hypotheses for future research.
One possible explanation for the low importance of social media as a source of influence for future students could be the lack of relevant content. This is due to the low engagement of such tools by universities as public relation and direct marketing tools. Most internet users expect to see links with corporate blogs, discussion forums or social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious, Flickr, and Digg on the web pages they visit. A large majority of universities do not provide online visitors with such options on their home pages and some universities are limiting their attention on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Lack of exciting and innovative applications, but also lack of other forms of social media like online communities, blogs, forums, and bulletin boards make it difficult to connect with future students. Creating attractive social media applications and connecting with potential students is therefore a major challenge for university marketers. This requires the allocation of resources, a different approach to marketing (from one-to- many to one-to-one), monitoring the social media domain, keeping these applications up-to-date.
Students use social media for a variety of purposes :- to gauge accessibility after failing to get admission from local Universities (Maringe & Carter, 2007); to explore career prospects and to explore cost issue to determine affordability (Cubillo, Sanchez, & Cervino, 2006); to investigate the international University collaboration with other accredited sister institutions (Cheung, Yuen, T.W.W., Yuen, C.Y.M., & Cheng, 2011); to weigh the cultural fitness for study and success in a preferred course (Counsell, 2011). Additionally, research has found that students are more concerned about the learning environment and will most probably investigate the situation by reading comments from others via social media or other online platforms (Chung, Holdsworth, Li & Fam, 2009). There are many instances when family and friends add prospective students to University social media groups or recommend their following to interact with professors or administration assistance for course selection (Bodycott, 2009; Lee & Morrish, 2011).
It is likely that students may have sought to obtain information on other areas such as the university’s facilities, services, events, activities instead of specifically seeking university and course information. Social media may therefore have not been the students’ primary source of university information.
The third study objective was to establish students’ social media usage and preference. Various literature sources cite studies on students’ decision making with assistance of social media and networks (Phang, 2012). Evidence of social networks and media influencing students decision making in University course choices has further been demonstrated by online recommendations from peers, tutors, relatives, pals and sometimes strangers (Cubillo, Sanchez, & Cervino, 2006; Chen & Zimitat, 2006; Maringe & Carter, 2007).
Additional studies by Mazzarol & Soutar (2002) indicate that students prefer advice and referrals from the University alumni via social media to share experiences and expectations. This is despite that fact that the students will make the final decision after consulting with other people and accessing various online and traditional sources of information (Mazzarol & Soutar, 2002). Furthermore, Pimpa (2003) established that students decision-making vary with the level of education in consideration. The prospective students can opt for contacting friends and other students in various social media like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google+, among others. However, if what the student seeks is about financial support such as scholarships or the university course costs, then the University website is a common attraction (Pimpa, 2003).
The fourth and final study objective was to identify social media sites and features that universities could engage on and integrate to attract and recruit students. Facebook attracts amongst the highest following amongst social media sites and therefore can be used as a key channel for recruiting students (Maringe, 2006; Maringe & Carter, 2007). However, some respondents were concerned that the information is not exhaustive for their decision making needs at all times. Indeed the dynamic social media with live updates influence the students’ decision as the queries and updates occur instantly (Cubillo, Sanchez, and Cervino, 2006).
The challenge for university marketing teams is to find ways to stimulate students and advocates providing comments and reviews in university-sponsored forums or online communities, and also publishing in their own online social networks, blogs, or other forms of social applications. This is a practice already implemented by many businesses, with very positive results on brand awareness, acquisition, and customer loyalty. The simple presence in the social media space is not enough for successful higher education marketing. Recruitment officers should actively and continuously engage the social media in their promotional mix, understand the online behavior of potential students, and accept that the customer is in fact a powerful party. Strong institutional commitment is very important and university marketers must be willing to allocate resources in this form of communication.
Conclusion
On the backdrop of increasing student mobility, the lure of students to education hubs aside from the US, UK, Australia, decreasing budgets and funding, many universities globally need to become more competitive to achieve student recruitment goals. The natural response to this is to utilise whatever traditional recruitment channels are available which do come at a cost to the university, both in terms of resources and finances. Choudaha (2013) suggests that, “In this context, social media presents an ideal opportunity by not only balancing institutional control of the communication and admissions process but also adapting to the changing engagement patterns of prospective students. In this context, the collaborative and engaging nature of social media provides a communication platform built on opinions and experiences of students and alumni and thus provides an opportunity to “tame the fundamentally unpredictable and serendipitous nature of word of mouth without losing what makes it so valuable in the first place—its authenticity”. (Zeisser, 2010). The recommendations in this section focus on some of the going beyond what may or already is being done by universities and based on inputs from the study.
Recommendations
As Universities seek to recruit students, it is evident that they would now need to move beyond just traditional information sources alone. Social media can provide the global reach, ease of information access and cost efficiency in reaching out to international students. In this context, universities need to have clarity on the type of students they target so that congruent information can be available on various social media to satisfy their queries. Apart from the use of social media by students and universities, the key elements of social media as explained in the literature review are engagement, collaboration, communities. In this context, a number of recommendations are made for universities to consider, using examples of how these are being done by some universities.
Engagement through localisation of social media
Since student recruitment involves significant time, resources, processes, and activities, university recruitment offices would need to consider profound understanding of social media tools and processes, local markets, language barriers and differences, and disparities in student decision-making processes. These inherent disparities are highlighted by cultural and language differences and contexts of countries and may be closed through effective use of social media, which provides highly efficient solutions with its capability to adapt to the expectations and requirements of potential students rather easily (Choudaha, 2013). Apart from the dominant social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google+, universities should also consider localised social media sites as suggested by some for e.g. Vkontakte (Russia).
The underlying purpose of localisation is to bring products and solutions closer to consumers or end-users by closing or dismantling language barriers and cultural gaps (Singh, 2011, p. 269). For commercial businesses, they need to localise their social media usage and reach as they expand globally to attract more customers and to close language disparities.
As for social media localisation, the goal is to leverage social media that enables the organisation to “create brand communities and crowd-sourcing models, gain consumer insights, enhance product and brand awareness, improve search engine optimisation efforts, reduce customer acquisition and service costs, and optimise overall marketing and communication efforts” (Singh, 2011, p. 270). In the context of student recruitment, localisation can be achieved by creating local web pages and social network accounts that specifically target prospective students of source countries (Choudaha, 2013). The University of Kentucky College of Arts and Science created localised pages on Chinese websites, such as Renren, Weibo and Sina to recruit potential student applicants and to support faculty exchange and study abroad programs (Choudaha, 2013).
Another institution that embraced social media localisation is the School of Graduate Studies of Canada’s Memorial University. The university created a social media online presence on the most visited social networking sites in China, South Korea and Japan. This campaign was accomplished by tapping the services of a graduate student from each source country to help leverage and augment the potential of foreign sites such as Renren, Naver and Mixi in student recruitment (Choudaha, 2013). For colleges and universities engaged in student recruitment, social media localisation can result in highly visible online presence in target local markets or source countries, drive higher response rate, and attract and recruit more students. Localisation is not merely about creating pages and using the local languages of source countries, but also about developing and implementing the right and effective localisation strategies (Heffring, 2012) that includes building the local ‘fan’ base. This is achieved through encouraging international alumni to become active members or administrators of localized sites, forums or discussion pages; encouraging prospective students to collaborate and participate; and utilising social media applications to promote sharing of content and engagement.
Social media analytics
Universities should gather data from the outset to determine what students need in order to shorten their decision making process. This study established that lack of timely communication is a reason why some prospective students have yet to embrace social media communication with a university of interest. Thus, regular follow-up of the students’ queries and post of messages and announcements would be very essential to attract these prospective students.
At present universities may not be monitoring the usage of or success of social media campaigns, hence the lack information about the success of the social media strategy. Universities should therefore consider using social media analytics to trace and measure the effectiveness of social media in marketing various courses, activities and other general enquiries in regard to students.
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