Page 66 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.75, # 2, 2018, pp. 64-78

Social media is essential to build high quality relationships with students for
universities (Clark, Fine and Scheuer, 2017). In the age of social media, firm created
communication is important for developing brand image. Consumer perception of
products might be influenced with loyal consumers engagement on social media.
Social media marketing in higher education grows and increases relationship between
students and universities (Clark, Fine & Scheuer, 2017). Students need to be fostered
to follow different social media sites of the universities. This can help university to
build closer relationship with students. Social media popularity impacted Canadian
universities to position in social media marketing. (Belanger, Bali & Longden, 2014).
Approximately one quarter of the universities in Canada do not engage much on social
media, however the top 30% of Canadian universities engage on social media highly.
These top universities foster social interaction by emphasizing high quality posts.
And, to increase reach both nationally and internationally, student engagement in form
of tweets take an important role. So, students need to be considered as advocate of the
brands because they can share experiences and give suggestions to others.

UGC is more effective than traditional advertising as it builds trust with consumers
(Christodoulides, 2012). Motivations of using UGC (user generated content) online is
investigated by Knoll and Proksch (2014). UGC is used by internet users to inform,
entertain themselves, form personal identity and interact with others. There might be
some important implications of UGC (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016) such
communication costs can be lowered as UGC is used to collect ideas of engaged
consumers (Krishnamurthy & Dou, 2008). Consumers who are active on UGC can
share their opinions about brands with others (Daughtery, Eastin & Bright, 2008).

Consumer engagement with brands or other consumers is an interactive and
experiential process (Brodie, Juric, Illic & Hollebeek, 2013). One study indicated that
behavior can effect UGC engagement experiences and consumers might be engaged
with persuasive strategies which affect behaviors rather than rewarding their
behaviors (Malthouse et al, 2016). According to Kim and Song (2018) experience
based content being preferred brand attitude and more willingness to click links on
UGC than content which is promotional on Twitter for unpaid UGC related to brand.
And, content which is promotional brings more willingness to click links that
experience based content for sponsored UGC related to brand on Twitter.

In a study of UK international students, it is explained that student generated content,
such as TIWIS (this is where I study) can be helpful for higher education institutions,
which want to reach their students (Bolat & Sullivan, 2017). Also, it is found that

66