Social Media and Higher Education

Abstract

The constant rise in tuition fees has created increasing pressure for British universities to augment the range of marketing tools used to attract students in competition with both domestic and overseas institutions. This chapter investigates the role of social media as a communication and marketing tool for Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Social media is a powerful tool for both direct and indirect marketing, and is highly relevant for universities targeting youngsters who belong to the so-called Generation Y. After presenting the background for social media marketing and higher education, we investigate whether the use of social media as a marketing tool has been effective in raising awareness of British universities. To do so, we collect data on the use of social media by HEIs (in the UK and in the USA for comparison), as well as data on students' response to these new marketing strategies. Unlike many other organisations, it seems that social media play a positive role in promoting British Universities, although the evidence suggests that they still tend to use social media too much like more traditional forms of marketing and PR.