The Influence of Twitter and Facebook on Public Relations Strategy in Universities: A Case Study of St Paul’s University

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to determine how the use of Twitter and Facebook has influenced
how universities develop and carry out their Public Relations strategy. A case study was
conducted at St Paul’s University in order to acquire the necessary data from sources that had
insight into how the university carried out it social media strategy. Public Relations activities
such as image and brand positioning, customer relations, employee relations, marketing and
advertising on Facebook and Twitter were analyzed in order to ascertain the Public Relations
strategy of the university. The Technology Acceptance Model and the Adaptive Structuration
Theory, formed the theoretical framework of the study. The study adopted mixed research
methods during data extraction in order to acquire information from respondents. A total of 361
respondents from the Department of Communication Studies and the Public Relations
Department were targeted with an 80% response rate. The data was acquired from the Public
Relations Department using interviews while questionnaires were used to extract data from
students and lecturers in the Department of Communication Studies. After data collection,
interview data was analyzed thematically while questionnaire data was analyzed using SPSS.
The study findings revealed that the use of Facebook and Twitter had influenced how the
university developed and carried out its Public Relations Strategy. Service delivery by the Public
Relations Department had been forced to change in order to keep up with the demands of their
publics on social media. It was further revealed that there were both positives and negatives
involved in the use of these new media. Based on the findings, the study therefore recommends
that Public Relations practitioners and institutions of higher learning would be served best by
adopting social media at the corporate level.