203 © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 A. Khare, D. Hurst (eds.), On the Line, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62776-2_16 Social Media Usage in Higher Education in Online Business Programs Gracia Castillo and Abubaker Haddud Abstract The impact of social media usage on students’ performance continues to evolve, and it is important to explore the best practices to gain the most benefts. This chapter covers the benefts of social media use in higher education by provid- ing an overview of the emergence of Web 2.0, its main tools and processes, how each of these tools can be used in higher education, and an academic snapshot of social media and students. Also, the chapter provides an evaluation of a current approach through reporting the fndings of a study conducted to explore the impact of social media usage on students’ engagement and performance. Quantitative research was conducted through the application of an online survey to collect pri- mary data from 96 students studying at six higher education institutions, namely, Central American Technological University (UNITEC), Honduras; University of the Valley of Mexico (UVM), Mexico; Latin American University of Costa Rica (ULATINA), Costa Rica; Inter-American University of Panama (UIP), Panama; CIBERTEC, Peru; and University of the Americas (UDLA), Chile, who were enrolled in an international business program in one of four online business courses [entrepreneurship, marketing, social corporate responsibility, and consumer behav- ior]. The study revealed that the use of social media tools can help online students become more engaged and interact more effectively with peers and instructors. Keywords Social media • Social networking • Higher education • Online business programs • Student interaction and engagement 1 The Emergence of Web 2.0 and Social Networking In 2004, the concept of “Web 2.0” began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. The term was an outcome of a dis- cussion about what is known at that time the dot-com crash. Dale Dougherty, Web G. Castillo Laureate Network Offce, Tegucigalpa, Honduras A. Haddud (*) Online Managemment Programmes, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom e-mail: abubaker.haddud@online.liverpool.ac.uk