Interactivity strategies and engagement in universities’ social media communication: insights from Latin America, Europe and the United States

Abstract

This article examines whether the interactivity strategies used by universities from Latin America, Europe and the United States in their social networks influence the level of engagement of their stakeholders. We applied a content analysis to 90,241 posts on institutional profiles on X/Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from 70 universities. The results show that Latin American institutions do not follow a significantly different interactivity strategy than European and US institutions. The interaction rates achieved are very low compared to other sectors and those recommended by experts. The interactivity strategy of universities is not sufficient, since the communication approach of publications in all social networks is very informative and the communication resources are mainly expository, although they are increasingly combined with interactive resources. This study proposes a framework to measure and evaluate the interactivity strategy of organizations in social networks by identifying and analyzing the main dimensions.