Determining Students and Faculty Awareness of Using Social Media Tools Towards Institutions Branding in Self-Financing Engineering Institutions in Tirunelveli District

Abstract

In recent years, branding has become more popular in higher education institutions. Branding Academia has become global phenomena today as well as a new emerging concept in the higher education institutions context. Internet offers huge opportunities today for institutions to communicate its messages with its stakeholders in this information age. Online branding is relatively a new concept in marketing discipline even today and also a great way to differentiate as well as stand out in this competitive business environment. Many organizations today prefer online branding towards communicating its brand benefits. In todays digital world, Social media presents wholesome opportunities for higher education institutions for communicating as well as promoting its brand image among its key stakeholders – students and faculty. The bottom line is that higher education institutions are left with no choice to heavily adopt social networking sites for developing an online connect among its key stakeholders. Hence, the presence of higher education institutions in those online networks is no longer a luxury but has become a reality today. This study seeks to determine students and faculty awareness of using social media towards institutions branding in self-financing engineering institutions in Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, India. The primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire. A total sample of 443 current under-graduate students and 88 faculty members of self-financing engineering institutions are surveyed in this study. The student and faculty samples are selected through proportionate stratified random sampling method. Furthermore, the study results have revealed that the majority of the self-financing engineering institutions are not at all capitalizing the potential benefits of its social media platforms to communicate its brand online. The results of this study will help these institutions to explore a greater potential of social media tools for delivering a consistent brand experience as well as communicating its online brand among its key stakeholders - Students and Faculty.

Keywords: Online Branding, Branding Academia, Self-financing Engineering Institutions, Social Media, Social Networking Sites

View PDF