Ethical Social Media Use in Higher Educations Institutions 253- 91% of universities don’t have formal social media policies;
- four universities were in the process of approving draft social
media policies. These were not available for us to examine at the
time of the study; and - 61% don’t have any formal document that manages social media
[...] - [...] We were able to obtain nine documents – social media
policies, guidelines or strategies – for analysis. - 44% focus on social media only as a risk to the institution. 33%
focus on it as both a risk and a relationship-building tool, while
22% focus on it only as a tool for building relationships; - most of the documents refer to “brand” and “image”. Just 22%
focus on brand, image and reputation; - 56% referred directly to disciplinary action for those who
transgress the guidelines within the document; and - 67% offered both professional and personal guidelines in the use
of social media. - Universities need to understand the important role played by
social media in their corporate strategies to obtain optimal results
for sustained growth and development.”
Given the dearth of current research on these newly emerging
dynamics and their impact on higher education institutions, this research
and its findings of these researchers are apposite, confirming both the
unpreparedness of leadership and management, and existing institutional
governance structures, to deal with their current multi-stakeholder
context and the unpredictable role and impact of social media in higher
education leadership, management and operations.