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Despite the growth and development of social media assisted by the factors that support the growth and usage of mobile devices and development of ICT, many Private Higher Education (PHE) institutes in Sri Lanka are not using these advantages to the fullest to reach their target market.
Understanding the reasons of such gap and the factors affecting the growth and development of social media would be very useful for the marketing arms of the private higher education players to fully take advantage of this potential in reaching the target market at the reasonable lower cost ratio.
Surveys have shown for an advertiser to reach at least 50 million users, it takes 38 years with radio medium, 13 years for TV medium and just four years with the internet. There are over seven billion people in the world with China’s 1.4 billion, India’s 1.2 billion, the USA’s 300 million and Indonesia’s 240 million people. The number of users of the biggest social media platform – Facebook – is in comparison with the top three to four countries with the biggest populations in the world.
Survey
To understand the use of social media in Sri Lanka, a questionnaire survey was conducted on the students’ internet behaviour to fully understand their interests in social media. A random search was also done on the internet on the 50 relatively bigger PHE players with some foreign affiliations, which has led to the findings that the majority are not using social media to the fullest.
Some PHE providers have duplicate Facebook accounts while the news information on the social media was not updated timely or consistently. Some of them have inactive Facebook accounts, which give the impression that they are closed or are not popular.
There are over 10,000 schools in Sri Lanka consisting of government, semi government and private schools as well as pirivenas. A set of questionnaires was sent to a database of over 8,000 available from the 29 private and international high schools students with a response rate of 3.4%.
More than half of the respondents were female, 180 out of 297. 84% of them have a Facebook account while half have a Twitter account. Many of them don’t read printed newspaper but read them online. 82% watch TV between 3 to 4 hours a day and 37% log into social media four to five times a day and usually the time of logging in is while having breakfast and travelling to class.
The medium of communication is mainly English with a mix of Sinhala in English font. On the scale of using more to mobile device or computer, about 65% of them use more mobile devices than the computer to access to their social media.
All schools don’t allow students to carry or have a mobile device in the school premises unless prior permission is given by the school which all social media is blocked automatically. 81% don’t follow a brand on Facebook but 40% are influenced from a friend on Facebook on a buying decision. 40% search online for pages they liked with most of them following on the newsfeed and an advertisement on Facebook.
More than half agrees that social media marketing is more effective. At least 56% does visit the related website on brands they are following.
Majority prefers to ask the brand online for more information. There are three time slots popular for the respondents to go online which is 5 to 7 a.m., 2 to 4 p.m. and 8 to 10 p.m.
More than half of the student’s parents have a Facebook account. Facebook chat is the most popular for chats on mobile devices and PC. 40% does click into advertisement on Facebook. From the findings of this survey, we can safely say that majority of the student population from the private schools have access to the internet, use mobile devices and meddle with social media more than once a day. Facebook seems to be the most popular social media platform and the majority agrees that social media marketing is effective.
Changing trends
Sri Lanka is a country of traditional background of religion and conservative way of life. This trend is changing with the younger generation due to the education process which exposes them to the different way of life outside of Sri Lanka.
The youth at the high schools are now adopting a relatively more modern life in the way of socialising. Social media is one of the popular methods to socialise. With the growth of social media encouraged by the growth of ICT and catapulted by aggressive service providers such as Dialog, Etisalat and others on internet services, not only to the urbanised area but also rural areas, all these trends are showing the same direction towards which a developing nation is going.
For the private higher education providers to not to use this platform will be a loss to them when the target market will probably grow to the fullest capacity; for example, in developed places such as Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, where social media is a way of life for friends to keep in touch of each other taking place in addition to socialising face-to-face.
We have seen these trends happening in many of the developed countries where friends socialise face-to-face with each other at public cafés while keeping in touch with others on social media at the same time.
There is cyber socialising happening in our daily life, for example, checking Facebook while travelling from one place to another, dining in a restaurant, in the toilets, etc. It is very much visible evidence when taking a trip in a public transport in Sri Lanka compared to public transport in Singapore. You will evidently see most or not all are engrossed on their smart phones in a public transport such as the Mass Railway Transport (MRT) and in a train ride from Colombo city centre to say down south during rush hour.
Sri Lanka has not yet peaked in terms of usage of social media relative to the other developed countries but it will do so one day and such a scenario is evidently round the corner. Understanding the variables of the equation will significantly help the private higher education providers to be able to use this platform to the fullest to reap maximum rewards.
(The writer has a regional career of over 22 years and has travelled to over 32 countries, mainly focusing on business development in the Asia Pacific Region, especially Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia including Sri Lanka holding various positions as an Agent, Executive, Manager, Regional Director and Director. He is currently the College Director of Raffles Design Institute Colombo. He had obtained a professional qualification with ICSA, U.K and Master of Business Administration from Central Queensland University of Australia. He is currently reading his PhD in Management/Business with Management & Science University of Malaysia.)
