Looking for the Sustainability Messages of European Universities’ Social Media Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Organizations in general, and higher education institutions in particular, had to face many challenges during the pandemic in order to carry out their usual activities. Since communications and interactions between universities and students were required to take place online, the messages sent by universities on their social media platforms held greater importance. In this regard, the purpose of the paper was to identify the promotion strategies used by European universities on Facebook and Instagram in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we were interested in identifying differences and similarities in the types of messages European universities sent on the two social networks, regarding the way they communicated about sustainability. The method used in order to conduct the research was content analysis, while having as an instrument a content analysis grid. We analyzed the activity of 20 European universities included in the World University Rankings 2021. The results of the research revealed that universities communicated more on Facebook than on Instagram, that the most frequent messages regarding sustainability were the ones about the actions carried out by universities in order to protect the environment, and that they registered a higher engagement rate on Instagram than on Facebook.