THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN GRADUATE STUDENT RECRUITMENT: A CASE STUDY

The beginning of the Internet in the 1990s has changed the landscape for business worldwide. The company has expanded its online presence to engage new customers more effectively. As a result, social media is becoming the driving force connecting companies and potential customers. Social media has also been actively used to recruit new employees. Some research has been done in this area, citing the value of the relationship between social media and employee recruitment. But there is no academic paper exploring the use of social media for university student recruitment at the undergraduate or graduate level. Universities currently use social media to connect with their alums. This paper is based on the case study of a small private university where they sued social media tools to attract graduate students. They used success criteria beyond click rate to calculate the return on investment for their efforts. They saw each click as their opportunity to click with a potential student and tell them their institutional value proposition. Data analytics collected in this process will be shared in this paper.