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International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (4.28) (2018) 67-71 International Journal of Engineering & Technology Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET Research paper Use of Social Media Sites by Malaysian Universities and its Impact on University Ranking Asmara Irfan 1 *, Amran Rasli 2 , Zuraidah Sulaiman 3 , Abdul Sami 4 , Muhammad Imran Qureshi 4 1 Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. 2 Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. 3 Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. 4 Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. 5 Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology,University Kuala Lumpur *Corresponding author E-mail: manalsami85@gmail.com Abstract Social Media is not just for photo sharing and status update, it can also be used by students for university selection. In the current era of high competition among higher educational institutes, many universities are focusing on online marketing. Most of the students are using social media sites to select their university which shows the importance of online presence for the universities. It is very much important for the universities to decide their marketing strategy to attract more and more international students. Good promotional marketing activi- ties through social media, social networking sites by universities is associated with the ranking of the university. In this article we review the importance of social media marketing through social networking sites like Facebook and the capability of Malaysian universities to use social networking sites and its impact on university ranking and its Facebook engagement rank. Keywords: Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Malaysian Universities Ranking 1. Introduction Higher education is an important sector of the economy because it contributes to knowledge and research. The importance of online marketing for higher education institutions becomes a necessity of the time. It is a fact that social media marketing is important for higher education institutions because when students searching for university information, social networking sites such as university Facebook pages is the most popular online activity [1]. This shows that the online presence of an institution is very much important for prospective students. It is very crucial for the universities to take advantage of their social networking sites (SNSs) to remain in competition. Social networking through university Facebook pro- vides a forum to parents and students to know about universities and it also encourages the enrollment process of institutions. Higher education institutions must develop an advertising plan as their marketing strategy to enhance their recruitment process. To establish successful online presence, university should support both traditional and online marketing strategies. Website perfor- mance (Web 1.0; web presence) and Web 2.0 (Social Media Mar- keting) is an important determinant of online achievement. Web 1.0 is the first step of marketing strategy and Web 2.0 is the next developed stage of marketing. Some authors use Web 2.0 inter- changeably with Social media. To effectively use social media as marketing strategy, university Facebook must be in a position to satisfy the expectations of the online students; it means university Facebook should be well designed. This is because university’s online presence reflects university’s ranking, quality and image. Using social media as a marketing strategy is not only the process rather it is the final step to improve the service of the university and its online marketing [2]. In order to develop an effective social networking; essentials tools are required like web content management software (CMS) with rich media features, a blogging system and web-based chat etc. These tools help higher education institutions in the development and management of social networking features which puts a posi- tive impact on the enrollment of students [3-4]. Social media like Facebook or Twitter are considered both social media and social networking. These sites are whole package platforms as social media is a tool and social networking is a way to engage the pub- lic. Users spend almost two hours daily on social networking sites. The most popular social networking sites (SNS) are Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram, WeChat [5]. Social media marketing could be define as ‘‘the utilization of social media technologies, channels, and software is to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offerings that have value for an organization’s stakeholders” [6- 7]. The popularity of SNSs can be seen from that from four out of five internet users has the SNSs account worldwide. Malaysia is very much part of this growing trend by having the highest inter- net literacy rate. As Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) is interested to attract more and more international students for this it has set different online marketing strategies to promote Malaysian Higher Education [8-9]. According to the statistics, in Malaysia 77% of daily users of internet are from age group 16 – 24 years, followed by 66.6% from the age of 35–44 years. This information identifies the importance of online marketing. There are many research studies which show the impact of online marketing fea- ture like social media, websites on student’s decision about their choice of university [10]. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Institutional Repository