Abstract:

Social networks are a phenomenon of today. Universities are trying to adapt to this trend. Therefore, nowadays, attracting students is relatively difficult within the environment of Slovak universities because higher education institutions fight each other for each student by using social media. In addition to this problem, higher education institutions face the problem of migration of students, who are going abroad to study at foreign universities. One of the departments of the University of Žilina, where we have been operating for several years, has long struggled with medium or low interest from students who would be interested in studying the fields of study offered by our department. For several years now, the department has tried to reverse this trend. New forms of departments' activities in acquiring new students focused on engaging social media marketing campaigns. However, the department does not measure the success of such oriented marketing activities. Thus, the department cannot evaluate whether these marketing campaigns attracted new students who would be interested in studying in the fields of study offered by the department. That's why the results of the research provided in this paper indicate whether the applicants attach importance to such targeted marketing activities. The results obtained by the study will serve for the selected department as a basis for the formulation of further direction in the field of implementation of marketing activities aimed at attracting new students.

Keywords:

Social networks, higher education, student acquiring, online marketing campaigns.