The impact on social media on brand image of a higher educational institution: a study of south eastern university of Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Companies are constantly monitor its changes of the brand image. However, it’s also necessary for them to take into account the rapid spread of social media and the rising number of social media users. Each company’s aim is to create positive brand image or if not positive, then at least an image that will lead to profitable results, leading positions on the market and opportunities for future growth. Therefore, the analysis of social media and what is the effectiveness of social media platforms on organizations image toward brands will provide efficient and helpful insights for companies. This research includes optimizing the advertising and persuading campaigns with tools that don’t necessarily require the investment of a lot of money. The purpose of this research is to find out the impact of successful Social web. This research tried to find out the relationship between independent variable Social media communication and dependent variable, brand image. By considering above situation and information the researcher come up with the research problem. What impact of Social media communication has an ultimate effect on brand image on higher education industry in Sri Lanka? The key objectives of this research is examine the effect of Social media communication on brand image and further explore the various dimensions of Social media communication, measure the relative impact of each Social media dimension on the brand image, identify the nature of the relationship between Social media communication and brand image. Data for the research has been collected from primary sources and for this purpose a questionnaire has been used. Secondary sources are also used like previous researches, articles on books, journals etc. 202 respondents were given the questionnaire for this purpose and analyzed those using SPSS software. The examination of the impact of social media communication on Brand Image demonstrates that Social Media online communities have huge impact in compare to other variables(β=0.486). Results of this research also demonstrate that consumers rely on the opinions of friends and other users regarding the information publish in the Social media communications and provided by these firms. In conclusion, the marketers should prioritize social media as their strategy because it does show that the social media communication has significant, direct and indirect relationships with the dimensions of brand image in the social media context.