A framework for the development of social media content strategies for higher education institutions

Organizations have been creating and maintaining a social media presence without a clear content strategy that permits to measure the return and impact of their communication investments. Social media audiences’ engagement indicators, such as the number of fans, followers, likes, comments, shares and retweets, among others, provide higher education institutions (HEI) with popularity insights that social media managers cannot translate into meaningful strategic value or return. In this paper we present a framework for the development of social media content strategies for HEI, which is aligned with their mission towards society; the broad diversity of its organizational stakeholders; the educational service’s peculiarities; the balance between organisations’ institutional and transactional needs to ensure competitiveness and financial survival; and the dialogical nature of social media environments. Seven content areas are presented and framed in the overall strategic management of HEI, together with three broad social media approaches for HEI.