Turkish Universities’ Use of Twitter: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Universities have became to use social media for various reasons. These are marketing, communicating with their students, and for supporting education facilities. The aim of this study is to analyse the usage of Twitter by universities in Turkey from a marketing perspective. Official Twitter accounts of 40 universities (20 of them are state universities, 20 of them are foundation universities) analysed by Nvivo 11 for the study. Qualitative data was collected for six months. These tweets were categorised under defined groups. Also the content of social media conversations and the interactivity of Twitter usage were analysed. Findings show that the ratio of promotional tweets is higher when compared to other groups reveals that Twitter accounts of universities were mostly used for marketing and branding. Another result is 40% of both state and foundation universities are qualified for active category.