A netnographic analysis of prospective international students’ decision-making process: implications for institutional branding of American universities in the emerging markets

Radicalising the marketing of higher education: learning from student-generated social media data

“…Despite social media being a vital part of current HE pedagogical practices, as argued by Gai et al (2016) and Scullion and Molesworth (2016) the HE context is slower in recognising the value of student-generated social media data and content for the HE marketing, branding and recruitment purposes. Perhaps this is due to ethical dilemma of using authentic experiential stories for commercial purposes (Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012).…”

“…Changes to student tuition fees, the de-regulation of student number controls, questions around contact hours and value for money, and trends towards large-scale marketisation and viewing the student as the consumer are to mention but a few (Tomlinson, 2015;Scullion and Molesworth, 2016). These changes have forced UK HEIs to search for a unique definition of what they offer in order to differentiate themselves and attract students (Chapleo, 2007;Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007;Gai et al, 2016). Students are overloaded with sophisticated integrated marketing communications from universities, all promising to serve them better than the competition (Gai et al, 2016;Jan and Ammari, 2016).…”

“…These changes have forced UK HEIs to search for a unique definition of what they offer in order to differentiate themselves and attract students (Chapleo, 2007;Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007;Gai et al, 2016). Students are overloaded with sophisticated integrated marketing communications from universities, all promising to serve them better than the competition (Gai et al, 2016;Jan and Ammari, 2016). To maximise marketing opportunities, HEIs need to understand and commit to continuously listening to students' conversations, in which true stories and illustrations of students' relationships with HEIs are revealed (Tomlinson, 2015;Gai et al, 2016;Jan and Ammari, 2016).…”

“…Students are overloaded with sophisticated integrated marketing communications from universities, all promising to serve them better than the competition (Gai et al, 2016;Jan and Ammari, 2016). To maximise marketing opportunities, HEIs need to understand and commit to continuously listening to students' conversations, in which true stories and illustrations of students' relationships with HEIs are revealed (Tomlinson, 2015;Gai et al, 2016;Jan and Ammari, 2016). In doing so HEIs will optimise marketing impacts through business decisions that are based on student-consumers' data (He et al, 2015;Gai et al, 2016).…”

“…Moreover, evidence of understanding how HEIs can utilise student-generated social media data for HE marketing and branding purposes is limited. Gai et al (2016) conducted netnographic analysis of online content published within a Chinese online forum, dedicated to choosing international HEIs. However, to our knowledge no published study reports on experiences in listening and learning from Facebook student-generated social media data, as opposed to specialised in HE themes online forums as well as websites, blogs and microblogs developed for pedagogical purposes (Barn, 2016).…”