An Overview of Nigerian Universities’ Presence on Social Media Platforms

Abstract

This study is an online survey on the presence of Nigerian universities on social media platforms. The purpose of the paper was to examine the level of presence of Nigerian universities on five social media platforms which include: Face book, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+. Three research questions were generated and one null hypothesis was formulated for this study. In the methodology, the internet served as the primary source of data, while Nigerian universities’ websites were used as secondary sources. All 129 accredited Nigerian Universities by the National Universities Commission were sampled for this study. Descriptive statistics (Percentage, Mean Rating and Standard Deviation) were used to answer research questions 1 and 2 while inferential statistics (Chi-Square) was used to test and analyse the null hypothesis. Report of Micaiah (2014) on Social Media Awareness in Nigeria Education which states that Nigerian universities’ presence on social media is minimal, was used as a guide; its methodology and data were also adapted for this study. The result showed that Nigerian Universities’ presence on social media platforms was 19% which is below par, compared to the unprecedented social media user base among Nigerian university students. In the analysis of the hypothesis, it was revealed that university ownership does not significantly determine the presence of Nigerian universities on social media platforms. It thus recommends that universities in Nigeria should as a matter of urgency, create a central unit of social media services to manage all necessary social media activities of their institutions, and to heighten Nigerian Universities’ presence on social media platforms which would create a mindset on educational goals and attainment among academics and students in Nigeria. Keywords: Nigerian University, Higher Education, Students, Social Media, Internet