The effectiveness of social media communication based on the student accommodation sector

7/27/2019 The effectiveness of social media communication based on the student accommodation sector.

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DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITYLEICESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL

MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, BASEDON THE STUDENT

ACCOMMODATION SECTOR.

Lillie Mae UnderwoodProject submitted in part requirement for the award of

BA (Hons) Marketing Management

April 2013Supervised by David Gordon


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Lillie Mae Underwood.

The Effectiveness of Social Media Communications, based on the Student

Accommodation Sector.

Abstract.

This study focused on the use of social media as a communication tool in the studentaccommodation sector. The qualitative research type was netnography andpredominantly concentrated on the use of the social media platform Facebook andhow students and their university accommodation services utilise it as acommunication tool. The university accommodation services observed were Keele,Loughborough and Birmingham. For the quantitative research an onlinequestionnaire was distributed. A total of 41 students completed the online

questionnaire that contained social media usage, social media frequency by both thestudent and the university, the types of platforms used, the importance of socialmedia as a communication tool and demographic characteristics.


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4.1 Questionnaire responses ....................................................................................................... 31

4.2 Netnography Research........................................................................................................... 42

4.2.1 Keele Universitys Accommodation Service on Facebook................................... 44

4.2.2 Campus Living Loughboroughs Facebook page .................................................. 50

4.2.3 The University of Birminghams Accommodation Services on Facebook ......... 57

4.2.4 The netnography research and its implication regarding the research objectives

62

5.0 A Summary of the Key Findings and Issues from the Quantitative and Qualitative

Research ............................................................................................................................................. 64

5.1 The use of Facebook by Current and Prospective Students....................................... 64

5.2 The use of Facebook by the universities accommodation services .......................... 65

5.3 Limitations regarding the research .................................................................................. 665.4 Looking back at the Research Objectives of this Project, in Light of the Research

and Reading have they been achieved? .................................................................................... 67

5.5 Research for the Future .................................................................................................... 69

7.0 References .............................................................................................................................. 71

7.0 Appendices ................................................................................................................................... 75

7.1 Online Questionnaire .............................................................................................................. 75

7.2 East Midlands Universities ..................................................................................................... 77

7.3 West Midlands Universities .................................................................................................... 78

7.4 Ethics Approval form for Research Activities ...................................................................... 79


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List of Tables and Figures.

Fig. 1. What is your age?

Fig. 2. Do you currently use any social media platforms?

Fig. 3. What social media platforms do you use?

Fig. 4. Do you currently (or have previously) lived in student accommodationprovided by your university?

Fig. 5. Does your university accommodation use social media to communicate withstudents?

Fig. 6. How valuable do you think it is for your university to use social media?

Fig. 7. Keele University Accommodation Service on Facebook

Fig. 8. Housing and/or room adverts

Fig. 9. Questions regarding hall maintenance

Fig. 10. Students enquiring about rooms in halls/flats/houses

Fig. 11. Prospective students finding future flat mates

Fig. 12. Advertising unofficial hall Facebook pages/groups

Fig. 13. Posts from admins

Fig. 14. Prospective students asking questions about accommodation

Fig. 15. Students advertising things regarding university

Fig. 16. Campus Living Loughborough

Fig. 17. Recent posts by others

Fig. 18. Questions to generate feedback

Fig. 19. Engage in friendly chat

Fig. 20. Creating competitions

Fig. 21. Sharing photos and videos

Fig. 22. Promoting activities around campus

Fig. 23. Engage with prospective students

Fig. 24. Presenting information regarding university accommodation

Fig. 25. Advertising university events


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Fig. 26. Advertising university accommodation services

1.0 The Aim of the Project

The aim of this project is to investigate social media communications effectiveness,

based on the student accommodation category. The mission is to look at recent and

relevant literature to give a broad overview to the background of the topic and then to

conduct research in light of this in order to answer the following research objectives:

1. Do students think that using social media as a communication tool would be a

good way to keep up to date with their accommodation providers?

2. Should social media become a more prominent method of communication

between students and accommodation providers?

1.1 Background to the Project and the Importance of the Topic

Since the world wide launch of Facebook in 2005, society has lived its life in both

cyberspace and reality. The rise of social media as a communication tool has not

only occurred for society but between businesses and their consumers and also in a

B2B context. Social media has enabled the world to become smaller allowing

messages to travel quicker and to be shared easier than ever before. This relatively

new communication tool has been adopted quickly by university students and the

rest of the Google Generation as they have grown up with social media so it is a

normal communication method between friends, family, and areas of interest such as

musicians, television shows and celebrities with geographic location proving no


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barrier for the communication. Students and universities use of social media is a

topic of importance as it is set to expand in the near future as technologies develop

and more UK universities and their accommodation services being to adopt social

media as a complimentary communication tool for the current and prospective

students.

1.2 Chapter Overviews

1.2.1 Literature Review

The literature review element of this project will review key and recent academic

journal articles on the area of theory on effective social media communication. An in

depth discussion and analysis of recognised authors in the field looking at key topic

areas such as the rise of social media and how it is used as a communication tool,

the prominence of Facebook, students and universities use of social media,

businesses presence on social media platforms and a social media image and why

it is hard to control. The literature review is an integral part of the research project in

order to develop background knowledge on the subject, and to gain perspective on

how social media communications has developed as to give insight as to where it

may lead in the future by identifying gaps in the literature.

1.2.2 The Methodology

In this section the author will discuss the planned research methods, explaining

sampling methods and the sampling frame, giving justification to the research design

and the analysis of the primary research. The Methodology is a chapter of great


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importance for the research project as without there would be no structure or plan in

order to gather the data needed to answer the research questions.

1.2.3 Investigation Discoveries

This chapter will focus on the findings from the research conducted by the author. It

will feature significant data, graphs and relevant illustrative quotes in order to

represent the findings from the research. This chapter is significant to the project as

the findings may enhance, explain or contradict the literature review.

1.2.4 A Summary of the Key Findings and Issues

The concluding chapter of this research project will discuss the discoveries from the

research. This is a highly important chapter in answering the research objectives and

ensuring the overall project aim has been met, in essence this chapter is a review of

the whole body of work. This chapter will also identify common and distinctive

features of the research, discuss the limitations to the research and identify areas

that may benefit from more research and analysis in the future.


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different reasons; they have now become interdependent in the way businesses

achieve their objectives and how society expresses it likes and dislikes of

companies, brands and products, many will jump to the defence of a

company/product/person if they think someone is being unfair- their vested interest

can make them great advocates (Keisler, 2008). Sacks and Graves (2012) believe

that social media can aid expression; they comment that geography no longer limits

opportunities. Social networking is not merely a way to waste time, but if used wisely

it is a means of self-representation and self-promotion.

2.2 Facebook

It is fair to say that when one says the phrase social media orsocial networking,

Facebook is the platform that will be at the forefront of peoples mind in the Western

World. Facebook has become the premier site for social networking; it now has more

than a billion monthly active users as of December 2012 (Facebook, 2012).

Kirkpatrick (2010) commented in his book The Facebook Effect, Facebook is a

technological powerhouse with unprecedented influence across modern life, both

public and private.

Facebook is viewed as much more than a way to stay in touch with friends, family or

your favourite band. Not only is the site a favourite source of social connectedness,

but it is even credited for helping spread democracy and topple regimes in countries

such as Egypt and Tunisia (Sacks and Graves, 2012). This shows the power that

Facebook can have when users can generate content such as statuses, images and

videos and share them with their network until each one of their friends has passed


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the message on until the message has gone viral and users are sharing content from

people which they dont know. On a much more modest scale Universities can use

their social media channels and focus on the sharing of their content in their network

to communicate messages with much more power and integrity. If likes serves as a

type of currency (McEachern, 2011) then surely shares do too.

McEacherns (2011) paper on the Facebook experience has some hugely interesting

themes regarding the use of social media and social media writing for non-profit

organizations. Although universities and their accommodation services do not fit this

business type, the paper provides general insight for how universities can use social

media; this then can be applied to their accommodation services. He comments that

social media writing is time-consuming. Facebook is interactive and readers

become, in effect, cowriters when they comment on a status update or post their own

material. But because of Facebooks interactivity, readers expect organizations to

respond to their comments, and they can grow impatient when they feel they are no

listened to. Social media writers needs to frequently check their sites and respond to

readers which is a time consuming addition to tradition writing duties. Dann and

Dann (2011) both comment that maintaining an organisational image is constant

battle as the brand image can change across all media platforms. The online image

is a topic that will be further explored later in this literature review.

The number of likes serves as a type of currency, with more likes indicating greater

popularity. But liking also serves as a means of publicity, as news ofa userslikes

will automatically appear on that members Facebook wall, inviting their friends to

view the liked item and possibly visit it and like it as well (McEachern, 2011). This is


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how social media, especially Facebook, connects like-minded people and gives them

a forum to generate, share and discuss thoughts, feelings and ideas. It is a fair

assumption to make that if the number of likes acts as a currency or an indication

that the page/business/brand/person is popular then the fewer the likes the less

interactivity users will have with that page as they deem it untrustworthy.

It is easy to forget that it is not just Generation Y who uses Facebook and other

forms of social media. Facebook is not the exclusive domain of young people and so

should not be viewed as a pastime that students will abandoned once they more fully

enter adulthood. Only about half (55%) its users are younger than 25 years, and

women older than 55 are its fastest growing demographic (Smith, 2009). This trend

matches the global trend of the aging population and whilst it is the young that may

adopt the use of social media quicker than their parents, they will inevitably age and

then become the older generation. Sacks and Graves (2012) make a very

interesting point that Facebook literacy is a necessary communication skill. If the use

of social media is displacing email in the workplace (Cardon & Okoro, 2010) then

employees and their managers must know how to transfer this type of

communication skill over to Facebook or their preferred type of social media.

Maranto & Barton (2010); Mazman & Usluel (2010) concur that Facebook requires

and enhances strong writing and interpersonal communication skills and it requires

something new- a kind of literacy that students and teachers alike, are still learning.

This new channel of communication is something that these authors think will

develop and, in time, be a main communication tool with organizations.


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2.3 Students and Universities use ofSocial Media

Most literature notes that it is the younger generation that are the biggest users of

social media and engage the most in social networking. Bahk et al (2010) states, this

generation has now grown up with video games and social networking, and prefer to

be connected at all times to their friends and family. From this, it is easy to infer that

social media could be a useful and effective communication tool for students at

university; whether to aid their studies or to enhance their lifestyle such as their

accommodation selection. Student reliance on social media is undeniable, the

concepts underlying it comes directly from social networking theory in sociology and

organizational behaviour (Sacks and Graves, 2012). The need to stay connected is

facilitated by the rapid development of mobile technology so people can stay

connected to their social media pages where ever they are located in the world.

From the study of segmentation of the users of social media using demographic

segmentation; conducted at the California State University San Bernardino, Bahk et

al (2010) found male students are more dependent on digital media communication

than are female counterparts and that those who are less rationally orientated tend

to prefer digital media to face-to-face channels of communication. However a recent

study of college students in the United Kingdom revealed that the driving factors

behind joining a social network differ substantially by gender, with female

participants joining to be generally sociable and keep in touch with friends, and male

participants joining based on peer pressure from friends and to make new friends

(Clipson et al, 2011; Benson, Filipaios & Morgan, 2010). The opposing views here

may make it hard to higher educational institutions to target and segment their

market by gender and so should look at using a psychographic or behavioural

segmentation to target their desired audiences.


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through from the firms main website. It is important that if a company has social

media, the consumer knows its the official site. This can be achieved by featuring

the social media logo on the companies website so consumers are directed to the

correct one. This is where a number of social media communication for university

accommodation services are let down; as from the audiences perspective, the

university may have a social media presence but it is not an official site. Pages can

be created by anyone, even people who arent connected with the university and use

the site for malicious intent. This is one major pitfall in social media as pages/sites

cannot be thoroughly regulated as previously explained.

However just having a presence isnt enough; companies must present a coherent

brand image across all media platform as Dann & Dann (2011) explain positioning in

social media is based on a combination of matching the right voice for the

organization in the way it communicates through a social media site with the right

style of site. MySpace, Facebook, Google Sidewiki and Blogger each have

distinctive tones, flavours and styles that can be determined by observation and

experience. If businesses want to capture the right target market for their brand or

product/service then they need to have a social media strategy; a social media

strategy enables the brand to be part of an active community and constantly connect

with consumers at their convenience in a creative manner (Furlow, 2011). Zailskaite-

Jakste & Juvykaite (2012) agree with Furlow (2011) that if businesses are to utilise

social media tools then they must have a strategy. The negative aspect of social

media that is mostly appointed by scientists is the lack of control mechanism:

message content, timing and frequency. In order to avoid the risks related with


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audience analysis becomes a little easier: as readers interact with a Facebook site,

whether by commenting, liking or clicking through a link, the writers gains a much

better sense of her or his readers wants and needs.

Although, as previously explained the communication is no longer unidirectional.

Unlike traditional, media, there are no rules when it comes to social media. Anyone

can state their opinion online, without any requirement to provide supporting

evidence and once published, these opinions can spread rapidly (Keisler, 2008).

This lack of guidance may put some companies off using social media; Keisler

(2008) goes on commenting that word of mouth can spread quickly when you

actually facilitate the conversation. Online conversations can work in your favour and

many consumers contribute opinion and information (Keisler, 2008); however even

though social media pages may be hard to monitor it shouldnt put companies off

using it to interact and engage with consumers as whether you have a presence or

not the conversation will happen without you (Keisler, 2008). An online image can be

a hard thing to control (McEachern, 2011).

Time also plays a strong role in Castronovo & Huang (2012) study of Social Media

in an Alternative Marketing Model. Word-of-mouth has been shown to be even more

effective in influencing purchase decisions than traditional advertising channels

(Godes & Mayzlin, 2004; Herr et al, 1991). It was over 20 years ago that this

statement was made by Herr et al (1991) and it has never been more relevant than

now as word of mouth communication proliferates via mass use of the internet. The

most recent and up-to-date WOM model is the Network Coproduction Model where

both the consumers and the marketers develop WOM communications together by


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3.3.1 Limitations of Quantitative Research

With all research there are limitations and a quantitative method is no exception. The

sampling method may be wrong for the research meaning the data collected may be

inaccurate and void for the research problems questions. Participants may leave the

surveys half completed or give incorrect information when taking part in the

research.

3.4 Qualitative Research- Netnography

The researcher plans to conduct the qualitative research method netnography. This

method is devised specifically to investigate the consumer behaviour of cultures and

communities present on the internet. It is a specialised form of ethnography that is

adapted to the unique computer mediated contingencies of todays social worlds

(Kozinets, 1998 and 2010).

Netnography is participant-observational research based in online fieldwork. It uses

computer-mediated communications as a source of data to arrive at the

ethnographic understanding and representation of a cultural or communal

phenomenon (Kozinets, 2010). Conducting netnographic research for this project will

include observing and investigating the use of the social media platform Facebook;

specifically observing Keele Universitys Accommodation Services, Campus Living

Loughborough and The University of Birminghams Accommodation Services. Strict

ethical standards and procedures will need to be adhered to in order for the research

to be successful, truthful and honest.


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In order to conduct the netnography the researcher will need to first gather

information using secondary resources to gauge if there were indeed university

accommodation services using social media to effectively communicate with their

students.

To make the research manageable and realistic the author of the research narrowed

down the geographical research area of universities to the Midlands, UK. The

researcher then used the UCAS online location search for universities in this specific

geographic location, separating the East Midlands and the West Midlands as this

was the only possible search function.

The researcher then broke down the findings into university accommodation

communication channels and general university communication channels as they

believed it was important to show the similarities or differences between the

universitys communication methods and their accommodation services.

Focussing on these particular institutions and the social media platform Facebook,

will of course limit the research but in turn, will the data collected more manageable.

3.3.1 Limitations or Undesirable Characteristics of Netnographic Research

Hine (2000) discussed the online and face-to-face variants of ethnography gave a

sceptical view ofwhat she calls virtual ethnography (Kozinets, 2010); if the


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appropriate sampling frame to use. Targeting a large amount of people within the

sampling frame should ensure that enough people respond and participate in the

study in order to collect accurate data.

Because the respondent is not under a time pressure or pressure from the

researcher they can take time over their answers ensuring all questions are

complete and have been truthfully and accurately answered. This will ensure the

data will precise allowing for accurate analysis, conclusions and recommendations.

There is no geographical limitation with regard to the respondents (Walliman, 2011);

however this studys sampling frame will focus on the UK only. Having no

geographical limitations enables the researcher to reach a large number of people

within the sampling frame. It will also give an insight into the differences between

locations allowing these variables to be compared.

3.6 Sampling

When conducting any kind of survey to collect information, it is important to consider

how representative is the information collected of the whole population. Sampling

must be done whenever information can only be gathered from a fraction of the

population of group which you want to study (Walliman, 2011).

3.6.1 Non-random Sampling

For this project the researcher will use a non-random sampling method focussing on

a theoretical technique. These methods have been selected as they are most suited


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to the research objectives; however there are advantages and disadvantages of

using this type of sampling method. As students and social media communication

are the two main topics of this research it would be logical to use non-random

sampling in order to achieve the research objectives. As students (past or present)

will be the only people with real insight into student accommodation, it seems only

reasonable to only select students to take part in the research in terms of the

quantitative research. However the same applies for the qualitative research. The

netnographic study of Keele Universitys Accommodation Services, Campus Living

Loughborough and The University of Birminghams Accommodation Services

requires a non-random sampling method in order for them to be selected a field

study sites.

3.6.2 Advantages of non-random Sampling using a Theoretical Technique

Non-random theoretical sampling is a useful method of collecting information from

the population that you think knows the most about a subject (Walliman, 2011). This

research project want to investigate student accommodation, therefore students will

be the entire population of the sample; this will give the most accurate data for

analysis.

It is more convenient for the researcher to use a non-random sampling technique. It

will save them time when conducting the research as the population size will be

reduced. It will be beneficial for this research project which has a relatively short time

frame to gather the data and then analyse it.


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4.0 Investigation Discoveries using both Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Methods

To collect research data to try and solve the objectives the investigator used both a

qualitative method using netnography and a quantitative method using an online

questionnaire. The research objectives for this paper on the effectiveness of social

media communications, based on the student accommodation sector are as follows:





The following section of the research focusses on the quantitative research that took

its form as an online questionnaire. The researcher has selected what they deem to

be the most significant findings from the research conducted (see appendix 1 for full

online questionnaire).

4.1 Questionnaire responses:


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of non-random sampling technique the results may be biased because the author

selected the respondents personally.

Looking back at the literature that has been reviewed earlier in this research there

are a number of authors who recognise age as a decisive variable regarding the use

of social media. Smith, 2009 Bahk et al (2010) and Zailskaite-Jakste & Juvykaite

(2012) commented on the use of social media by the younger generation

commenting, this generation has now grown up with video games and social

networking, and prefer to be connected at all times to their friends and family and

that young people are open to novelties. However as this data is from a non-random

research sample and the research question dictates that the data will be selected

from respondents of a student age, which the data collect represents.


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Fig. 5.

Question 9 was designed using a likert scale to identify the frequency of the

communication from the respondents universities via social media. 25.00% of the

respondents said that their university frequently used social media to communicate

with its students. However it seems quite surprising that 28.00% of the respondents

selected the never answer choice considering over 90% of the respondents said

that their university or students union does have a social media presence. From

these two questions, one could make an educated assumption that the universities

are not utilising their social media to its full effect and using it to communicate with its

students. However one observation to make regarding the data from this question

Never

27%

Rarely

10%

Sometimes

23%

Frequently

25%

All the time

15%

Does your university accommodation use social media to

communicate with students?

Answer Choices Responses

Never 28% 11

Rarely 10.00% 4

Sometimes 22.50% 9

Frequently 25.00% 10

All the time 15.00% 6

Total 40


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that one respondent did not answer this question. This may be because they are the

respondent who on 6 answered no their university does not have a presence on

social media. This respondent may affect the 100% accuracy of the data for this

online research but it is important to be realistic when carrying out the research that

the data is unlikely to be 100% accurate as respondents may not answer the

questions truthfully or give an accurate portrayal of the use of social media regarding

themselves and their university.

This question may not directly confirm, contradict or enhance any of the literature but

it does greatly help in answer the research objectives: Do students think that using

social media as a communication tool would be a good way to keep up to date with

their accommodation providers?And should social media become a more prominent

method of communication between students and accommodation providers? Using

the frequency data from this question and data from other questions and the

netnographic research the research give an educated answer to both research

objectives in the concluding part of this research project.


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3. Students enquiring about rooms in halls/flats/houses

Fig. 10.

Above is just one example of students actively using the group to search for a

room/house. The first student requiring a room prompted 4 different replies from

students trying to help find accommodation and perhaps help themselves by filling

their spare room. What these posts cannot show however is if the students have

been sent private messages via Facebook from other students offering

accommodation to them.

4. Prospective students finding future flat mates

Fig. 11.


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This member of Keeles Facebook accommodation group appears to be a

prospective student who does not yet attend the university. The researcher infers

this from the information given on Keeles website as their accommodation for their

halls of residence is allocated to first year students. This prospective students is

actively looking for their new potential flat mates however, as pictured above, she is

yet to receive a reply. Although it is worth remembering that although no one has

replied to her publically using the group page, she may have been contacted

privately via her own Facebook messages.

5. To Advertise unofficial hall Facebook pages/groups

Fig. 12.

This is only one example of a student adverting unofficial hall groups that appear to

have been created by students, for students; however they are being aimed at

current prospective students who hope to attend Keele, pending A Level results and

other entry requirements. These unofficial groups are not part of this research but

their effects will be discussed in the concluding chapter of this project.


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7. Prospective students asking questions about accommodation

Fig. 14.

Pictured above is just one example of a prospective student asking questions

regarding accommodation at Keele. It is an educated assumption that the

prospective students must have actively searched for Keeles accommodation group

on Facebook or they have found it via the universitys website and their list of official

social media pages that they endorse and encourage their prospective, current and

alumni students and also their staff to use. The two prospective students however

have not had any interactions with their posts, although as aforementioned they may

have been contacted privately via their personal Facebook pages.

8. Students advertising things regarding university

Fig. 15.

The final topic on the Facebook group for Keele Universitys accommodation is

current students adverting items and/or events on the group. There were numerous

examples of posts that the researcher could have selected that were specifically

targeted at Keele students but are not regarding accommodation. It is at an educated


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assumption that the students have used the group because it has over 1,000

members and therefore they can target a large audience.

4.2.2 Campus Living Loughboroughs Facebook page

Fig. 16.

Above is a screen shot of Campus Living Loughborough, their campus

accommodation and lifestyle Facebook page where students. From the About me

section of Campus Living Loughboroughs Facebook page they say:

Campus Living (formerly imago Services) is the department within the University

that is responsible for allocating and managing our accommodation, including the


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catering, housekeeping and facilities associated with the Halls of Residence. In

addition, we provide food and drinks in our Campus outlets for staff and students

who come onto campus to study. Campus Living is an award winning organisation

and we are proud to be part of providing the best student experience at

Loughborough.

Here they promote themselves as providing the best student experience at

Loughborough and it could be inferred that they are using their presence on

Facebook to ensure that this good experience is mirrored in the online world.

Campus Living Loughboroughs presence on Facebook is different to Keeles as they

have chosen to create a page where users are encouraged to like the page to

receive updates they post on their own personal timeline. This allows Campus Living

Loughborough to be featured on over 1,000 users timelines (correct at 15/4/13) and

their own page is able to showcase its own content rather than act as a discussion

board for its members like Keeles accommodation group does.

When observing how Campus Living Loughborough uses Facebook to communicate

with its students one notable difference from Keeles accommodation Facebook

group was that there was a significantly lower number of posts on the page, however

this does not include the section Recent Posts by Others on Campus Living

Loughborough (Fig. 17) where users can click to see all the comments that

Facebook users have posted on to the page.


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Fig. 17.

Looking specifically at the content that Campus Living Loughborough posts on to its

Facebook page there are 5 main topics/themes that they post about.


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1. Questions to generate feedback

Fig. 18.

Here Campus Living Loughborough has posted a question to try and spark

conversation and interactivity on their page. They received 7 replies to their question

regarding a reward to clean and tidy living areas. Asking a question like this enables

Campus Living Loughborough to showcase how interactive their page is. User

replies have been liked and all the replies were received on the day that the

question was posted.


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2. Engage in friendly chat

Fig. 19.

Acting as a friend even though they are an organization, Campus Living

Loughborough has posted a good luck message to their students sitting exams. This

has triggered 8 likes and so users who have liked the Campus Living

Loughborough page, 8 of them have liked their post.

3. Creating Competitions

Fig. 20.


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with the post by watching the video but not given an indication by liking,

commenting or sharing with their Facebook friends.

5. Promoting activities around campus

Fig. 22.

Campus Living Loughborough has used their page to promote some activities that

take place on the campus. This particular post has received one like and one

share, therefore it has had a greater reach than its 1,000 friends on their Facebook

page. Again, as aforementioned it is important to remember that even though the

interactivity of this post is relatively low, it is hard to measure how many of the 1,000

friends of the page have seen the post and went to the event because of seeing the

post on Campus Living Loughboroughs Facebook page.


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4.2.3 The University of Birminghams Accommodation Services on

Facebook

The University of Birmingham has an official Facebook page that has been

endorsed by the university as it is featured on their website allowing access to it

through the use of social icons. The University of Birminghams accommodation

services Facebook pages described itself by saying,

We're here to help you with every stage of the accommodation process; whether

you're in university owned accommodation or in the private sector, just post a

message on the board and we'll help you with your query.

This Facebook page takes on the same form and structure as Campus Living

Loughborough as all the content on the page has been created and posted by The

University of Birminghams accommodation services. Observing the Facebook page

it is clear to see that there are 4 main topics of the posts.


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for this research it is impossible to measure how many students have looked at the

map on this Facebook page.

3. Advertising university events

Fig. 25.

This screen shot featured is of a Go Green event being held by the university which

has its own event created on Facebook that has 426 users attending. The post has

been liked by 1 user and commented on by 3 users. This visible interactivity is easy

to monitor and analyse but one could assume that the only interaction users had with

the post is to click through the link to the event page of Go Green Week.


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3. Current students making room enquiries.

4. Prospective students asking questions regarding the university

accommodation before they have made their final choice.

5. Some students use the Facebook channel to advertise unofficial halls pages

that are ran by students for students.

6. Students post content that is related to student life but not necessarily student

accommodation.

7. Students advertising university related items and/or events

5.2 The use ofFacebook by the universities accommodation services

There are 7 key findings in regards to topics and the use of the Facebook channels

by the universities accommodation services:

1. They post questions to generate feedback from students.

2. Engage in friendly chat mirroring the tone of voice in their mission statement.

3. Posting media content such as photos and videos.

4. Arrange competitions to stimulate interaction from students.

5. They post content related to student life.

6. Engage with prospective students with posts specifically targeted to them.

7. To advertise accommodation to students.

On One key finding from the qualitative research is that the university

accommodation services that were observed rarely used their social media presence

as a selling tool to student and/or prospective students. Their main use is a

complimentary service that is ran in conjunction with the more traditional forms of

communication such as telephone and email.


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5.3 Limitations regarding the research

The main limitations regarding the quantitative research were the sample size and

the non-random sampling method used by the researcher. As the sample size only

included 41 respondents it was not wholly representative of the student population

and the non-random technique could make for biased results but it was indeed

necessary in order to select respondents who are (or have been) students to ensure

the research objectives can be met.

As the questionnaire was distributed online the researcher did not need to be

present when the respondents were filing out the survey. This could have potentially

posed a problem in ensuring all the questions were answered truthfully and honestly.

For example question 9 was only answered by 40 out of 41 of the respondents

therefore the data produced for this question will not give a true reflection like the

other data.

There were indeed limitations to the qualitative research. The analysis of the data

collected using this research method may introduce bias in the conclusions as the

researcher had to use a non-random purposive sampling technique as one cannot

conduct research on a topic in a location where it does not exist.

Another limitation of the research as a whole was the sample size for both the online

questionnaire and the netnography study of the social media channels. As the

researcher limited the geographical area of which to identify the university


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accommodation services that use social media as a communication tool with its

students, the number of universities that matched the requirements in order for the

research to take place was very low, limiting the amount of data to analyse and

compare. And as aforementioned the sample size of the online questionnaire was

small and not wholly representative of the student population.

5.4 Looking back at the Research Objectives of this Project, in Light of the

Research and Reading have they been achieved?

The researcher believes that the netnographic research is the underpinning

reasoning as to why the research objectives were indeed achieved:





Looking at the first objective the researcher believes that the evidence from the

university accommodation services Facebook channel is effective communication in

action. The students are engaging with one another and the accommodation service

pages are interactive with convocation and social media etiquette occurring in the

form of likes and shares. The author believes that the social media channels being

used as a communication tool by students and their university accommodation

services is a confirmation that students already think that using social media as a

communication tool is a good way to keep up to date with their accommodation

provider. Sacks and Graves (2012) made a very interesting point that student


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services in the Midlands used Twitter as a communication tool also. To

develop a better understanding of how universities and students use other

social media platforms as a communication tool more preliminary research to

establish which university accommodation services first of all use social media

and then which social media platforms they use.

3. Create a more in depth questionnaire with a larger sample size

The researcher has already noted that the sample size of the online

questionnaire was small only including 41 respondents. If further research

was to be undertaken on a national scale, in order to ensure all the

respondents are indeed students each student should be individually emailed

or the questionnaire should be advertised on university internal webpages as

to only allow students to complete the survey.

The questions the feature in the online questionnaire should include a greater

emphasis on what the students want to see in terms of their student

accommodation services using social media as a communication tool. For

example, what topics they would like communicated by the accommodation

services, frequency of posts and gauge how they would personally use the

channel.


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7.0 References

Bahk. C. M, Sheil. A, C. E. Rohm. T Jr. & Lin. F, (2010). Digital Media Dependency,

Relational Orientation and Social networking among college students.

Communications of the IIMA. 10 (3), pp.69-78

Benson, V., Filippaios, F., & Morgan, S. (2010). Online Social Networks: Changing

the Face of Business Education and Career Planning. International Journal of E-

Business Management, 4 (1), pp. 20-33.

Burt, R. (1992). Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition.Boston, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Campus Living Loughborough, (2012). Information Page, Available from

https://www.facebook.com/campus.living.loughborough/info, Accessed 18/1/13.

Cardon, P., & Okoro, E. (2010). A Measured Approach to Adopting New Media in the

Business Communication Classroom. Business Communication Quarterly, 73, pp.434-438.

Castronovo. C & Huang. L, (2012). Social Media in an Alternative Marketing

Communication Model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness.6

(1), pp.117-131

Clipson, T., Wilson, A., & DuFrene, D. (2011, March). An Examination of GenderDifferences in Reported Experiences with Online Social Networking. Paper

presented at the annual conference of the Association for Business Communication,

Southwest United States, Houston, TX.

Daisley, B. (2013). Twitters Growing Presence. IBM Social Business Event.

Dann. S & Dann. S, (2011). 'Social Media', e-Marketing: Theory and Application.1st

ed. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp.343-380.
https://www.facebook.com/campus.living.loughborough/infohttps://www.facebook.com/campus.living.loughborough/info


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Unknown, (2008). Global Perspectives: How is your company or client using social

media for employee communication? Communicat ion World. 25 (6), pp.17

Walliman, N (2011). Your Research Project: designing and planning your work.. 3rd

ed. London: Sage Publications. pp171-190.

Wilmot, R. (2013). Making Business Sense of Social Media. IBM Social Business

Event.

Zailskaite-Jakste, L., and Kuvykaite, R. (2012). Implementation of Communication in

Social Media by Promoting Studies at Higher Education Institutions. EngineeringEconomics, 23 (2), pp 174-188.


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7.4 Ethics Approval form for Research Activities

Appendix 4

Documents

The effectiveness of social media communication based on the student accommodation sector