Social Media as a Teaching Tool During Pandemic. A Case of Romania

Social media platforms became important communication tools for all universities during the COVID19 pandemic. As the isolation created a gap between different actors (students, future potential students, students’ families, and professors), universities began to put a greater emphasis on communication through social media and social media became a bigger part of the overall communication strategy of universities. The present article aims at analyzing two prestigious technical universities in Romania, namely the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and the Polytechnic University of Timisoara relating their social media posts during the COVID 19 pandemic. The two universities have been chosen because they are similar in size, in terms of the number of students. The methodology is based on a quantitative exploratory study and comprises a total of 28385 posts that have been analyzed based on the attractiveness to the target audience. The target audience of the analyzed universities are students, future students (along with their influencers), and professors, so their navigation habits and social media behavior needs to be investigated in depth. To leave an impact and communicate effectively post must be tailored according to the target audiences’ interests. The main categories the investigated universities focus on are events, achievements, brand awareness, and partners. Yet, although they target the same audience, the way they communicate on social media presents huge differences. The results are correlated to findings in prominent literature, and they show us that the students are most active during the exam period, holidays, and Mondays.