Higher Education Branding in Africa: A Social Media Perspective

The global higher education landscape has continued to experience changes and transformation, and there have been various contextual evidences that globalization has been a major contributor to this change. As a result of globalization, higher education institutions become more marketable and the need for brand building has increased. Over the years, there have been various attempts by higher education institutions to boost and improve their public image, and this has necessitated corporate visual identity and some changes to their names. This research is an inquiry into higher education branding in Africa using the social media perspective. Evidences were culled from the websites of universities in East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, South Africa, and Central Africa. Two institutions were selected from the regions and how they have branded themselves and established themselves on social media was considered. With various institutions offering service to members of the public, there are various avenues for dishing out information and engaging their prospective clients. The notable platforms these institutions use include Facebook, twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. This study recommends that the mandate by which each institution was established should be incorporated into their brand identities and propagated via social media. There should be an audit of all social media pages to understand engagement levels across all platforms, and to proffer other ways of branding to the institution.