A Contribution of Uses and Gratification Theory towards the Brand Equity of Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs)

A university's brand equity is a key driver in communicating its values to prospective students. Meanwhile social media usage facilitated those prospective to gather information relevant to higher education institutions. A dynamic model focusing on customer-based brand equity often lack empirical support in higher education sectors, particularly in Malaysia. This study explores the role of social media usage as a factor to brand equity. It is believed that contribution of this social media uses, and gratification theory will help Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) to better understand how the satisfaction of social media usage would increase its brand equity. Hence, this study aims to examine the relationship between social media usage and brand equity. This paper reviews literature related to social media usage towards brand equity in PHEIs with theoretically integrate the theory of uses and gratification. Drawing from the theory of uses and gratification the purpose of this study is to examine how social media usage influences brand equity. The quantitative findings from 180 undergraduates indicated social media usage influences the brand equity of higher education institutions. The results from structural equation modeling provided insight into how relationship developing, information sharing, self-presenting, entertaining of social media usage influences brand equity