Analysing effective social media communication in higher education institutions

Strategic communication on digital platforms is central to achieving organisational objectives, with social media enabling access to information, relationship-building, and dialogic engagement. While universities widely use social networks for branding, community connection, and reputation building, existing research typically examines isolated aspects such as platform presence, activity levels, resources, and content types. A comprehensive, integrated analysis across posting, interactivity, and content remains underexplored. This study addresses that gap by analysing the institutional communication strategies of 70 universities across the United States, Europe, and Latin America on Facebook, Twitter (X), and LinkedIn. It aims to identify how universities manage posting performance, interactivity focus, and content combination on social media, and how these dimensions jointly shape institutional communication.

Theoretical background emphasises social media as strategic tools that enhance stakeholder relationships, access to information, and organisational reputation. Dialogic communication frameworks suggest that successful online strategies move from one-way informational dissemination to two-way relational exchanges. Three interrelated dimensions of social media institutional communication are identified: (1) Posting performance, comprising Activity (frequency of posts) and Presence (type of posts—proprietary, shared, hybrid), which together yield profiles from Passive/Active and Centripetal (proprietary) to Centrifugal (shared). (2) Interactivity focus, reflecting willingness to engage stakeholders via the General Communicative Approach (informational vs. conversational) and Communication Resources (expositive vs. interactive), producing foci ranging from Monologic and Extended Monologic to Incipient Dialogic and Dialogic. (3) Content combination, the selection and balance across key topics—Teaching, Research, Social Commitment, Organisational, and Contextual—producing Exclusive, Dominant, Combined, or Balanced content profiles. Prior studies highlight social media’s role in institutional positioning and reputation, but indicate limited dialogic application and varying content strategies across institutions and platforms.

Design: Quantitative content analysis of institutional social media communications. Sample: 70 higher education institutions—20 United States, 25 Europe, 25 Latin America—selected via ARWU, THE, and QS rankings (top 100 for US/EU; global/regional positions for LATAM with geographic diversity). Platforms: Facebook, Twitter (X), and LinkedIn, chosen for relevance and differing user orientations. Units of analysis: Posts from official institutional (general) profiles only. Period: Six months in 2021—three months in March–June and three months in September–December—totalling 26 weeks and 183 days. Data collection: Via Noticias Perú mass data collection system; two teams (retrieval: 1 supervisor + 2 technicians; analysis: 1 supervisor + 2 analysts). Reliability: Intercoder test on 300 randomly selected posts; Cohen’s Kappa: Presence 0.99 (99% agreement), Activity 0.96 (97%), General Approach 0.82 (91%), Communication Resources 0.93 (90%), Topic 1 0.83 (91%), Topic 2 0.80 (90%). Measures: (1) Posting performance—Level of Activity (LoAC): daily mean posting frequency mapped to a 1–5 scale per platform-specific recommended frequencies (FB 1–2/day; Twitter 3–5/day; LinkedIn 0.5–1/day); Type of Presence (ToPE): weighted per post (Shared =1, Hybrid =1.5, Proprietary =2) to position profiles from highly shared to highly proprietary. (2) Interactivity focus—Level of General Approach (LoGA): informational (1) vs conversational (2), scaled from very informational to very conversational; Level of Resources (LoRE): ordinal 0–5 based on use of resource categories (text, graphic, audiovisual, referential, hypertextual, participatory), scaled from very expositive to very interactive. (3) Content combination—Five content topics: Teaching, Research, Social Commitment, Organisational, Contextual. Topic salience measured as percentage of total posts with six intervals: very low (<10%), low (10–19.9%), medium (20–29.9%), high (30–44.9%), rather high (45–59.9%), very high (>60%). Level of Combination (LoCO) yields Exclusive, Dominant, Combined, Balanced, or Inactive profiles. Analysis: Data recorded in Excel and analysed in IBM SPSS 25. Posting performance: Chi-square, Cramer’s V, simple correspondence analysis, multiple correspondence analysis with optimal scaling. Interactivity focus: Spearman’s Rho, two-way ANOVA, Kruskal–Wallis H. Content combination: one-factor ANOVA.

Posting performance: Overall profile is Passive Centripetal—medium-low activity with a very high share of proprietary content (TOTAL LoAC 2.70; ToPE 1.82). By region (Table 1): Europe (LoAC 2.1; ToPE 1.75) and USA (LoAC 2.6; ToPE 1.74) are Passive Centripetal; Latin America (LoAC 3.5; ToPE 1.90) is Active Centripetal. By platform (Table 2): Facebook is generally Active Centripetal (LoAC 3.10; ToPE 1.98), driven by LATAM (LoAC 4.90); Twitter and LinkedIn are generally Passive Centripetal (Twitter LoAC 2.50; ToPE 1.71; LinkedIn LoAC 2.40; ToPE 1.98). On Twitter: EUR Passive Centripetal (1.90; 1.59), USA Passive Centripetal (2.90; 1.64), LAT Active Centripetal (3.00; 1.83). On Facebook: EUR and USA Passive Centripetal (~2.10 activity) vs LAT Active Centripetal (4.90). On LinkedIn: all regions Passive Centripetal with low activity. Dispersion indicates varied strategies, especially on Twitter. Interactivity focus: Predominantly Monologic overall (TOTAL LoGA 1.09; LoRE 2.41) across regions (Table 3), with LAT slightly higher on both indicators (LoGA 1.12; LoRE 2.45). By platform (Table 4): Twitter—Monologic (TOTAL LoGA 1.07; LoRE 2.31; all regions Monologic). Facebook and LinkedIn—Extended Monologic, with higher resource interactivity (Facebook TOTAL LoGA 1.12; LoRE 2.51; LinkedIn TOTAL LoGA 1.12; LoRE 2.61). Content combination: Overall Exclusive with an Organisational orientation (TOTAL: Organizational 68.6%, Teaching 18.3%, Research 8.5%, Commitment 2.3%, Context 2.3%). By region (Table 5): EUR Exclusive (Org 69.0%); USA Exclusive (Org 76.9%); LAT Dominant (Org 61.6%, Teaching 23.8%). By platform (Table 6): Twitter—Exclusive overall (Org 70.2%), LAT Dominant (Org 63.3%, Teaching 23.2%); Facebook—Dominant overall (Org 65.8%, Teaching 20.8%), but USA Exclusive (Org 77.7%); LinkedIn—Exclusive overall (Org 72.7%), LAT Dominant (Org 64.9%, Teaching 20.6%). Stage distribution: Majority of universities are Passive Monologic (68.5%), nearly one-third Active Monologic (31.5%), none in dialogic stages. Posting archetypes: Passive Centripetal dominates across networks (Facebook 71.5%, Twitter 61.5%, LinkedIn 65.5%), with Active Centripetal present (Facebook 28.5%, LinkedIn 34.5%, Twitter 24.5%). Centrifugal profiles are rare (Passive Centrifugal: 6 universities; Active Centrifugal: 4). LinkedIn inactivity observed in 12 universities.

The findings show universities emphasize proprietary content dissemination with relatively low activity (Passive Centripetal), reflecting a strategy aimed at attracting and retaining followers within institutional profiles rather than directing them outward. Interactivity remains predominantly monologic, indicating that universities still privilege informational approaches over dialogic engagement, though there is gradual adoption of interactive resources (especially on LinkedIn and Facebook). Content strategies are largely oriented toward organisational topics, using social media for institutional positioning, with teaching and research as secondary and social commitment/context as marginal. Differences by region and platform suggest contextual adaptations: Latin American universities are more active and show more teaching content, and Facebook supports higher activity, whereas Twitter and LinkedIn exhibit lower activity. Integrating posting, interactivity, and content reveals most institutions are in a Passive or Active Monologic stage, with no institutions achieving dialogic stages. These patterns answer the research questions by evidencing a consolidated centripetal posting profile, a primarily monologic interactivity focus with incremental resource diversification, and an exclusive or dominant organisational content mix. The results underscore opportunities to transition toward dialogic strategies, increase activity levels appropriately, and rebalance content to better align with stakeholder interests to foster engagement.

Higher education institutions predominantly implement low-intensity, proprietary-centric posting strategies and monologic interactivity on social media, using institutional content in exclusive or dominant combinations. While there are platform and regional nuances (e.g., higher activity and more teaching content in Latin America; greater activity on Facebook; more interactive resource use on LinkedIn), overall practices fall short of dialogic engagement. The study contributes by integrating posting performance, interactivity focus, and content combination into a unified framework applicable to institutional social media assessment. Practically, it offers a guide for communication professionals to enhance strategic management by calibrating posting frequency, increasing dialogic approaches, and diversifying content beyond organisational themes. Future research should extend analyses to platforms like Instagram and TikTok, examine how dimension combinations influence engagement, conduct platform-specific deep-dives, and assess impacts on different stakeholder groups and account types within universities.