An exploitation of how social media marketing impacts the decisionmaking process of students attending private higher learning institutions in Pretoria

Abstract

Social media is increasingly playing an important role in the everyday lives of young and old people alike. Consumers today turn to online sources more and more to help them make decisions. This has implications for private higher learning institutions (HLI) as the accelerated growth of the internet has led to increased social media marketing competition among recruiters. Having conducted a broad literature review, it was noted that the research conducted on this topic predominantly focuses on public higher learning institutions in countries outside of Africa. The purpose of this study was to determine how social media marketing impacts the decision making process of students choosing to attend private HLI institutions in South Africa. More specifically, data was collected from students attending private HLI in Pretoria by means of an emailed self-administered questionnaire. The sample was selected using non-probability sampling in the form of convenience sampling. This data collection method was chosen because of the difficulty in identifying pupils attending private HLIs who also use social media given the time implications of this research report. The results of the proposed study show that social media marketing only plays a moderate role in student’s decision making process. It features most as an information source, however only slightly influences student’s decision-making when choosing a private HLI.