Facebook for Public Relations in the higher education field: a study from four countries Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary

Abstract

In recent years, social media has provided higher education institutions with new means of communication with their target groups. In this study, research was conducted on top public universities from four countries in Central Europe, with a focus on their Public Relations activities on Facebook. The purpose of this research is to explore the use of Facebook by selected universities and to provide a set of practical benchmarks on successful communication with the public. The quantitative data analysis was conducted using the data mining tool Netvizz. Data from 2017 and 2018 obtained from 31 Facebook profiles of selected universities were used. The findings provide evidence on the use of Facebook by universities for Public Relations. Furthermore, they reveal that different post features generate different customer behaviour. The study contributes to a better understanding of marketing-related activities on social media in higher education field.