Navigating the digital landscape: The impact of social media on higher education enrolment and beyond

Abstract

With the growth of the higher education sector, students opting for higher education are inundated with a plethora of choices. Admissions is a key revenue generator for any higher education institutes (HEIs), and the pressure on the admissions team is increasing day by day to ensure that admission quotas are filled. In order to attract and retain students, HEIs are tuning into social media platforms in the hope of engaging with their prospective students and becoming their destination of choice for higher education. In this paper, we analyse the point of view of media managers from various business schools on how the use of social media impacts college choice. A total of sixteen media managers were approached with an unstructured interview guide, and the discussions were audio-taped. The findings show that social media is far more than a marketing tool—it functions as a multifaceted platform for engagement, branding, information dissemination, and pedagogical support. The findings also confirm the belief that media managers are well aware of the role of social media but are still working on traditional media. They need to find ways to move into closed-loop social media.

https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel.2026.18.012