THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON BRAND AWARENESS AND ALUMNI WORD OF MOUTH ON UNIVERSITY ENROLLMENT INTENTION: A STUDY OF NEPALESE AND THAI STUDENTS
Keywords:
Social Media Marketing, Brand Awareness, Alumni Word of Mouth Marketing, Enrollment IntentionsAbstract
The purpose of the study is to evaluate and compare the impact of university social media marketing strategies, alumni’s word of mouth, and brand awareness on prospective university enrollment among 161 Nepali and 161 Thai students with bachelor's degrees. For data gathering and analysis, researchers used a quantitative research technique, the convenience sample approach, and an online survey were administrated to collect data from respondents in Thailand and Nepal for the study. Multiple regression analysis was applied to test the relationships between the variables. According to the research findings, social media marketing has a considerable influence on word-of-mouth marketing via alumni and brand awareness, while alumni word-of-mouth is also statistically significant on brand awareness. Furthermore, brand awareness is significantly related to enrollment intention in both Nepali and Thai data sets. However, social media marketing had no statistical impact on Thai students' enrollment intentions. In contrast, the Nepali dataset revealed an insignificant link between alumni word of mouth and university student enrolment. The findings of this article may be used by a university recruiting team to improve student recruitment efforts in both nations and make well-informed judgments based on information for strategic formulation.
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