We should be using social media more to understand students
How to use netnography to improve communication with prospective and current students
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As our use of social media and smartphones has increased, so has interest in social media research. This mushroomed considerably during Covid lockdowns when restrictions prevented us from conducting face-to-face research and people spent more time online. This trend continues to grow and as a result, the British Council has worked with a third party to release a global report about how international students used social media when considering UK study options between March 2022 and May 2023.
The British Council’s report provides a starting point for conversations about how we can make use of international students’ social media activity to understand them. One approach I will discuss in this resource is netnography.
Using netnography to understand students
Netnography is a portmanteau of the words internet or network and ethnography and was founded in 1995 by Professor Robert Kozinets. The growth and development of the method was centre stage at Netnocon, the first international conference on netnography. Netnocon 2023 was hosted at the University of Salford, MediaCityUK with a theme of building bridges, and I was proud to be its founding co-chair.
At the University of Chester, we’ve recently had the opportunity to adopt a netnography approach to studying international students and their online discussions. My colleagues and I presented two papers on international students and employability at the fifth edition of the International Conclave on “Globalising Indian Thought” held at the Senate House in London.
Netnography has allowed us to understand what students are saying outside formal and solicited surveys, testimonials and methods in a more “warts and all” kind of way. It provides a window into the topics students are naturally discussing, rather than what we prompt or elicit them to respond to. It also helps us to understand some of the trends, pain points, trust points and other complex issues that we have spotted in some of the other data. By adopting an ethnographic approach and immersing ourselves in those conversations, we can productively and realistically understand the challenges and opportunities that these students face. Because this approach is accessible, straightforward and time-effective, it appeals to university staff and students. It aids understanding of different cultures and their challenges and complexities on an ongoing basis. Responses to geopolitical events can be assessed in real-time and adaptations made quickly and effectively.
Challenges of social media research
With social media, there are of course several challenges that need to be considered. These include matters of access, ethics and authenticity. Netnography is inherently ethnographic and therefore should be distinguished from other related but distinct methods such as content analysis, social network analysis or other forms of ethnography or social media research. The third edition of Netnography: the Essential Guide to Qualitative Social Media Research sets out clear ways (almost in recipe format) to conduct netnography, including detailed and precise processes for ensuring that the research is performed ethically. This includes how to sensitively approach the research and present findings in a way that protects individual posters’ identities. It should be noted also that many people who use public social media channels do not tend to post or comment, so the comments and voices represent a small percentage of the overall population, but an important, visible and vocal one. The people at the most active end are social-media influencers. They can have thousands or millions of followers (micro- or mega-influencers).
- Spotlight: Create welcoming classrooms for international students
- How to support international students’ smooth transition to a new country
- How to help international students prepare for university life ahead of and after their arrival
Education-focused social media influencers create powerful posts that discuss key aspects of the student experience or employability. The many thousands of responses to these provide fertile ground for understanding the interaction between online cultures and student voices. Also, using analysis tools such as NodeXL can help to identify these influencers, patterns in conversations, geography, sentiment and other metrics that can further inspire netnography or other qualitative social media research.
Bringing the results to life with personas
The final step of a netnography is incarnation. This can be output in a journal, presentation, report, article or other form and it should demonstrate the richness and complexity of that online culture against the research question set. One particular way that marketing departments tend to use is to create “personas” to understand different audiences. A persona could be developed and refined using various types of data from website and social media analytics, surveys, interviews and netnography. Understanding students’ challenges and opportunities (pain and trust points) assists universities in recruiting more students and improving the student experience. Our research paper highlights how social media activity can be used to create and refine personas. Presenting stories, quotes and examples is also key to the incarnation of social media data.
Universities can make more use of students’ social media activity to understand the lives, challenges, hopes and dreams of international and domestic students. This can help us not only to understand them but to communicate more meaningfully with them about the things that matter to them. The result will be something that we all want: a more inclusive, responsive and supportive educational environment.
Alex Fenton is the associate dean of international and an associate professor at the Faculty of Science, Business and Enterprise at the University of Chester.
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You can find out more about personas with examples in our recent digital marketing book.
