Adoption of Digital and Social Media Marketing by the States and Colleges in Laguna: Metrics for

Measuring the Impact on Students Enrollment

The main problem of the study is to develop a framework or metrics for evaluating the impact of digital and

social media marketing on students enrollment meant for the use of states and colleges in Laguna:

Specifically, it sought answers to the following queries:

1. What are the current digital and social media marketing utilized by the states and colleges in Laguna?
2. What is the level of digital and social media marketing adoption of the states and colleges in Laguna?
3. What are the factors that influence the admission officers of states and colleges to adopt digital and social
media marketing as identified by the admission officers in terms of:
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4?
4. What is the impact of digital and social media marketing on the student enrollment as perceived by the
admission officers?
5. Are there significant relationships between the factors affecting the admission offices to adopt digital and
social media marketing as identified by the admission officers?
6. What are the challenges faced by the admission officers on the adoption of digital and social media
marketing in terms of:
5.1
5.2
5.3
7.

8. How do college admissions officers use social media for recruitment and admissions purposes?
9. In the same way, the second section highlights findings that illuminate the extent to which
prospective students use social media to search for information about universities and colleges
and whether social media play a role in their decision to attend.
10. What is the role of social media platforms in the recruitment process of the organization while
hiring students?
11. How do college admissions officers use social media for recruitment purposes?
12. To what extent do students use social media to search for information about universities and
colleges, and do social media play a role in their decision which institution to attend?
 13. social media present new challenges for institutions of higher education.
i) clear policies that guide interactions between prospective students and admissions officers
on social media
ii) approach taken by institutions of higher education in adopting the use of social media for
marketing, recruitment, and admissions.

14. to provide policy makers in institutions of higher education and admissions officers with insights
into how social media are currently being used as a tool for marketing, recruitment, and
admission of potential students
15. creating a framework or metrics for evaluating the impact marketing on social media has on
students’ decisions to attend and enrollment numbers.
16. Challenges in Utilizing Digital and Social Media Marketing
Merrill (2011, p. 41) expresses concerns about the ambiguous feedback from social networking,
marketing and the difficulty in measuring results.
Griffiths and Wall (2011, p. 64) state that careful monitoring of social sites is critical, and
procedures and standards to manage information on sites should be continually reviewed and
revised.
10. What is the level of HEIs digital adoption
11. the reasons of using digital and social media marketing by higher education institutions
12. The second objective of the study is to recognize the purposes why higher education
institutions make use of digital and social media marketing. The collective responses are for
recruitment campaign, marketing function and outreach campaign.

Methods

The study used a descriptive type of research in which quantitative analysis was employed using the
frequency count and percentage.

The use of social media by institutions of higher education to market themselves to potential students is
a relatively new phenomenon, and as a result, not much academic literature exists on this issue. One of
the most comprehensive and recent studies in the field was conducted by Barnes and Mattson (2009),
who compared social media use by admissions officers at American colleges from 2007 to 2008.

Types of media platforms

1. blogging
2. video blogging
3. social networking sites

Social media use by admissions officers at institutions of higher education Barnes & Mattson (2009)
Social media and college admissions

Merrill (2010) Social media and international students recruitment

Cappex.com (2010) Social media use by admissions officers in private and public institutions

Barnes & Mattson (2010) Social media and college admissions

Varsity Outreach (2011) Facebook use by admissions officers to recruit students

Spraggon (2011) Social media use for marketing undergraduate business programs

Barnes, N. G., & Lescault, A. M. (2011). Social media adoption soars as higher-ed experiments and
reevaluates its use of new communications tools. Retrieved from the University of Massachusetts,
Dartmouth website:
http://www.umassd.edu/media/umassdartmouth/cmr/studiesandresearch/higherEd.pdf

Stagno, M. C. Z. (2010). Potential of the social media as instruments of higher education marketing:
Guidelines for a social media marketing strategy for the University of Twente. (Unpublished thesis).
University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands.

Varsity Outreach (2011). Facebook and admissions: A closer look at how college admissions offices use
Facebook. Retrieved from Varsity Outreach website:
http://www.varsityoutreach.com/Documents/FacebookAndAdmissions2011.pdf