Leveraging Social Media Marketing for Brand Performance among Ugandan Universities
##plugins.pubIds.doi.readerDisplayName##:
https://doi.org/10.37284/eajbe.8.2.3406
Résumé
This study examines the role of social media in enhancing brand performance through social media marketing among Universities in Uganda. The specific objectives of the study were; to critically examine the effect of text posts by universities and interactivity on the number of likes, shares and type of comments in Uganda; to examine the relationship between social media photo vividness of universities on the number of shares, comments and likes and to analyse the interactive effect of social media perceived brand valence on the number of likes, shares and comments. This study adopted the mixed methods critical realism research philosophy to collect data. The findings from this study indicate that there is a significant positive correlation between social media interactivity, valence, and vividness with brand performance in terms of likes, shares, and comments of universities in Uganda. The study offers potential strategies to facilitate social media engagement by universities through which real-time feedback about the services of the universities can be sought. Another important outcome from this study is the contribution to the scholarly debate about social media engagement by universities in trying to further reach out to their communities. The study concludes by throwing light on the role of social media in promoting university brands. While there are limitations associated with the proposed methodology, such as a lack of inclusion of other lower-level institutions, the study concludes that social media carries with it a strong opportunity to increase access to the masses from where university programmes can be advertised, alumni are kept in the network and university research is disseminated to the public
##plugins.generic.usageStats.downloads##
##plugins.generic.usageStats.noStats##
Références
Alalwan, A.A., Rana, N.P., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Algharabat, R. (2017), “Social media in marketing: a review and analysis of the existing literature”, Telematics and Informatics, Vol. 34 No. 7.
Alvi, M.H. (2016) A Manual for Selecting Sampling Techniques in Research, MPRA Paper No. 70218, Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/70218/
Ansari, J.A.N. & Khan, N.A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learning Environments, 7 (1), 1-16
Banerjee, A. and Chaudhury, S (2010). Statistics without tears: Populations and samples, Ind Psychiatry J. 2010 Jan-Jun; 19(1): 60–65
Belanger, C.H., Bali, S and Longden, B. (2014). How Canadian Universities use social media to brand themselves, Tertiary Education and Management Vol. 20, Issue 1 pp.14-29 British Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (2011)
Bruhn, M., Schoenmueller, V., Schäfer, D.B. (2012) "Are social media replacing traditional \media in terms of brand equity creation?", Management Research Review, Vol. 35 Issue: 9, pp.770-790,
Chaffey, D. (2018). Global social media research summary 2018. Accessed from; https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
Chua, A.Y.K. & Banerjee, S. 2015, Marketing via Social Networking Sites: A Study of Brand Post Popularity for Brands in Singapore, Proceedings of the International Multi Conference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2015 Vol I, IMECS 2015, March 18 - 20, 2015, Hong Kong
Constantinides, E. 2014, Foundations of Social Media Marketing, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 148, 40 – 57
de Vries, L. Gensler, S. & Leeflang, P.S.H. 2012, Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: an Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 26, pp.83–91
Duffett,R.G (2017) "Influence of social media marketing communications on young consumers’ attitudes", Young Consumers, Vol. 18 Issue: 1, pp.19-39
Fayvishenko, d., Kovalchuk, s., Sidielnikov, d., Holik, o., & Kyianytsia, i. (2025). The effectiveness of digital communications for promoting brands on social media platforms. Journal of theoretical and applied information technology, 103(6).
Galan, M., Lawley, M and Clements, M (2015) Social media’s use in post-graduate students’ decision making Journey; An exploratory study, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol. 25, Issue 2, pp. 287-312
Jacobs, J. (2016). Social Media: Tech’s Growth Industry, Accessed from; https://www.globalxfunds.com/social-media-techs-growth-industry/
Kamau, J.N. (2025). The mediating role of smart learning environment in the relationship between social media and academic performance among university students. African, Journal of Business & Development Studies,1(2), 214–227. https://doi.org/10.70641/ajbds.v1i2.99
Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and Gratifications Research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509–523. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2747854
Khanna, M., Jacob, I., and Yadav, N (2014). Identifying and analyzing touch points for building a higher education brand, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, VOL. 24, Iss. 1, 122- 143
Kietzmann, Jan H.; Hermkens, Kristopher (2011). "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media". Business Horizons (Submitted manuscript). 54 (3):241– 251. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005. S2CID 51682132.
Kohli, C., Suri, R., & Kapoor, A. (2015). Will social media kill branding?. Business horizons, 58(1), 35-44.
Kusi, A., Opata, C.N. and Narh, T.-W.J. (2015) Exploring the Factors That Hinder the Growth and Survival of Small Businesses in Ghana (A Case Study of Small Businesses within Kumasi Metropolitan Area). American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 5, 705-723.
Mali, M. K., Pawar, R. R., Shinde, S. A., Kale, S. D., Mulik, S. V., Jagtap, A. A., ... & Rajput, P. U. (2025). Automatic detection of cyberbullying behaviour on social media using Stacked Bi-Gru attention with BERT model. Expert Systems with Applications, 262, 125641.
Manfred, B., Schoenmueller, V. & Daniela B. S. 2012, Are social media replacing traditional media in terms of brand equity creation?, Management Research Review, Vol. 35 Issue: 9, pp.770-790.
Muneja, P. S. (2025). Marketing of electronic resources by universities and colleges in Tanzania. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 74(1/2), 564-582.
Nyanduko, N.C. (2016). The effect of social media use on building brand equity among threestar hotels in Nairobi County, Kenya (unpublished research report, for the degree of master of Science in Marketing, School of Business, University of Nairobi
Obar, Jonathan A.; Wildman, Steve (2015). "Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue". Telecommunications Policy. 39 (9): 745–750. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2647377. ISSN 1556-5068. SSRN 2647377.
Peruta, A. and Shields, A.B (2017) Social Media in Higher Education: Understanding how Colleges and universities use Facebook, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education Vol. 27, Is. 1 pp. 131-143
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 879-903.
Priori Data (2025). Social media users; 2025 (Global data & statistics); available at: https://prioridata.com/data/social-media-usage/
Reyneke, M., Pitt, L., Berthon, P.R. (2011) "Luxury wine brand visibility in social media: an exploratory study", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 23 Issue: 1, pp.21-35
Ridley, D. (2018). How Today’s Colleges and Universities are Using Social Media; accessed fromhttps://vtldesign.com/digital-marketing/social-media/how-todays-colleges-and universities-are-using-social-media/ on 20 March 2018
Saunders, B., Sim, J., Kingstone, T. (2017). Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization, Quantity and Quality, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research Methods for Business Students. 5th ed. London: FT and Prentice Hall.
Statista (2023). Social Media and User Generated Content: Geographical distribution of users as of January 2023. Available at: https://www.statista.com/markets/424/topic/540/social-media-user-generated-content/#statistic1
Stojanovic, I., Andreu, L., Curras-Perez, R. (2018). "Effects of the intensity of use of social media on brand equity: An empirical study in a tourist destination", European Journal of Management and Business Economics, https://doi.org/10.1108/EJMBE-11-2017-0049
Stuart, E., Stuart, D., Thelwall, M (2017) "An investigation of the online presence of UK universities on Instagram", Online Information Review, Vol. 41 Issue: 5, pp.582- 597
Taecharungroj V, (2017) Higher education and Social Media marketing; 12 Content types universities post on Facebook, International Journal of Management in Education, Vol 2 Issue 2, pp.111-127
Vidgen, B. and Yasseri, T., (2016) P-values: Misunderstood and Misused, Frontiers in Physics, Vol. 4, Issue 6.
Virvilaitea, R., Tumasonyteb, D., & Sliburyte, L. 2015, The Influence of Word of Mouth Communication on Brand Equity: Receiver Perspectives, Procedia - Social and
Wang, J., & Wu, G. (2025). Using interactional metadiscourse for rapport management: A study of Chinese university enrolment posts on WeChat. Pragmatics. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.24039.wan
Alvi, M.H. (2016) A Manual for Selecting Sampling Techniques in Research, MPRA Paper No. 70218, Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/70218/
Ansari, J.A.N. & Khan, N.A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learning Environments, 7 (1), 1-16
Banerjee, A. and Chaudhury, S (2010). Statistics without tears: Populations and samples, Ind Psychiatry J. 2010 Jan-Jun; 19(1): 60–65
Belanger, C.H., Bali, S and Longden, B. (2014). How Canadian Universities use social media to brand themselves, Tertiary Education and Management Vol. 20, Issue 1 pp.14-29 British Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (2011)
Bruhn, M., Schoenmueller, V., Schäfer, D.B. (2012) "Are social media replacing traditional \media in terms of brand equity creation?", Management Research Review, Vol. 35 Issue: 9, pp.770-790,
Chaffey, D. (2018). Global social media research summary 2018. Accessed from; https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
Chua, A.Y.K. & Banerjee, S. 2015, Marketing via Social Networking Sites: A Study of Brand Post Popularity for Brands in Singapore, Proceedings of the International Multi Conference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2015 Vol I, IMECS 2015, March 18 - 20, 2015, Hong Kong
Constantinides, E. 2014, Foundations of Social Media Marketing, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 148, 40 – 57
de Vries, L. Gensler, S. & Leeflang, P.S.H. 2012, Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: an Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 26, pp.83–91
Duffett,R.G (2017) "Influence of social media marketing communications on young consumers’ attitudes", Young Consumers, Vol. 18 Issue: 1, pp.19-39
Fayvishenko, d., Kovalchuk, s., Sidielnikov, d., Holik, o., & Kyianytsia, i. (2025). The effectiveness of digital communications for promoting brands on social media platforms. Journal of theoretical and applied information technology, 103(6).
Galan, M., Lawley, M and Clements, M (2015) Social media’s use in post-graduate students’ decision making Journey; An exploratory study, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Vol. 25, Issue 2, pp. 287-312
Jacobs, J. (2016). Social Media: Tech’s Growth Industry, Accessed from; https://www.globalxfunds.com/social-media-techs-growth-industry/
Kamau, J.N. (2025). The mediating role of smart learning environment in the relationship between social media and academic performance among university students. African, Journal of Business & Development Studies,1(2), 214–227. https://doi.org/10.70641/ajbds.v1i2.99
Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and Gratifications Research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509–523. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2747854
Khanna, M., Jacob, I., and Yadav, N (2014). Identifying and analyzing touch points for building a higher education brand, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, VOL. 24, Iss. 1, 122- 143
Kietzmann, Jan H.; Hermkens, Kristopher (2011). "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media". Business Horizons (Submitted manuscript). 54 (3):241– 251. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005. S2CID 51682132.
Kohli, C., Suri, R., & Kapoor, A. (2015). Will social media kill branding?. Business horizons, 58(1), 35-44.
Kusi, A., Opata, C.N. and Narh, T.-W.J. (2015) Exploring the Factors That Hinder the Growth and Survival of Small Businesses in Ghana (A Case Study of Small Businesses within Kumasi Metropolitan Area). American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 5, 705-723.
Mali, M. K., Pawar, R. R., Shinde, S. A., Kale, S. D., Mulik, S. V., Jagtap, A. A., ... & Rajput, P. U. (2025). Automatic detection of cyberbullying behaviour on social media using Stacked Bi-Gru attention with BERT model. Expert Systems with Applications, 262, 125641.
Manfred, B., Schoenmueller, V. & Daniela B. S. 2012, Are social media replacing traditional media in terms of brand equity creation?, Management Research Review, Vol. 35 Issue: 9, pp.770-790.
Muneja, P. S. (2025). Marketing of electronic resources by universities and colleges in Tanzania. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 74(1/2), 564-582.
Nyanduko, N.C. (2016). The effect of social media use on building brand equity among threestar hotels in Nairobi County, Kenya (unpublished research report, for the degree of master of Science in Marketing, School of Business, University of Nairobi
Obar, Jonathan A.; Wildman, Steve (2015). "Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue". Telecommunications Policy. 39 (9): 745–750. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2647377. ISSN 1556-5068. SSRN 2647377.
Peruta, A. and Shields, A.B (2017) Social Media in Higher Education: Understanding how Colleges and universities use Facebook, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education Vol. 27, Is. 1 pp. 131-143
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 879-903.
Priori Data (2025). Social media users; 2025 (Global data & statistics); available at: https://prioridata.com/data/social-media-usage/
Reyneke, M., Pitt, L., Berthon, P.R. (2011) "Luxury wine brand visibility in social media: an exploratory study", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 23 Issue: 1, pp.21-35
Ridley, D. (2018). How Today’s Colleges and Universities are Using Social Media; accessed fromhttps://vtldesign.com/digital-marketing/social-media/how-todays-colleges-and universities-are-using-social-media/ on 20 March 2018
Saunders, B., Sim, J., Kingstone, T. (2017). Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization, Quantity and Quality, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research Methods for Business Students. 5th ed. London: FT and Prentice Hall.
Statista (2023). Social Media and User Generated Content: Geographical distribution of users as of January 2023. Available at: https://www.statista.com/markets/424/topic/540/social-media-user-generated-content/#statistic1
Stojanovic, I., Andreu, L., Curras-Perez, R. (2018). "Effects of the intensity of use of social media on brand equity: An empirical study in a tourist destination", European Journal of Management and Business Economics, https://doi.org/10.1108/EJMBE-11-2017-0049
Stuart, E., Stuart, D., Thelwall, M (2017) "An investigation of the online presence of UK universities on Instagram", Online Information Review, Vol. 41 Issue: 5, pp.582- 597
Taecharungroj V, (2017) Higher education and Social Media marketing; 12 Content types universities post on Facebook, International Journal of Management in Education, Vol 2 Issue 2, pp.111-127
Vidgen, B. and Yasseri, T., (2016) P-values: Misunderstood and Misused, Frontiers in Physics, Vol. 4, Issue 6.
Virvilaitea, R., Tumasonyteb, D., & Sliburyte, L. 2015, The Influence of Word of Mouth Communication on Brand Equity: Receiver Perspectives, Procedia - Social and
Wang, J., & Wu, G. (2025). Using interactional metadiscourse for rapport management: A study of Chinese university enrolment posts on WeChat. Pragmatics. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.24039.wan
Publiée
30 juillet, 2025
Comment citer
Rugyendo, A., & Abaho, E. (2025). Leveraging Social Media Marketing for Brand Performance among Ugandan Universities. East African Journal of Business and Economics, 8(2), 188-200. https://doi.org/10.37284/eajbe.8.2.3406
Rubrique
Articles
Copyright (c) 2025 Arinaitwe Deo Rugyendo, Ernest Abaho, PhD
Ce travail est disponible sous la licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International .
