Marketing Education Online: A Case study of New Zealand Higher Education Institutions

Social Media interaction, an off shoot of web 2.0 environment has caused a paradigm shift in the way we communicate in a society. The modality of the purchase decisions has been radically influenced by this mode of communication. It is only a matter of capitalizing on this opportunity and having the best strategy in the current environment to succeed in changed market environment. Marketers should start focusing on developing high quality marketing strategies conforming to this new environment. This study investigates Social Media Marketing attributes of Higher Education institutions from New Zealand. It uses a customized tool namely Social Media Marketing Attributes (SMMA) Analysis to benchmark the practices from the institutions. Very little participation in using Social Media as a communication channels for marketing has been identified. A number of strategies are recommended to align the marketing with the demand and make the best use of this effective medium namely Social Media. The findings of this study have practical implications for the organizations working in this industry; where they can use the findings in developing effective customer centric marketing strategies.