This document summarizes a study investigating how social media source characteristics influence the usefulness of information for evaluating study destinations. The study conducted interviews with 110 Chinese students across Australia. Results found that trustworthiness was more influential than expertise. Credibility and authentic personal experiences were important. Appearance also mattered, with friendly-looking sources ranked higher. Similarity, such as shared interests, made information more useful. The study provided insights for improving social media marketing strategies to international students. Further research could examine preferences of student segments and importance of message attributes.

1. Co-author:
Associate Professor Pierre Benckendorff
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2. Background
WHY?
Relevant
literature
WHAT?
Methodology
–HOW?
Results
SO WHAT?
The broader
study (PhD)
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3. Growth of international student mobility
Growth of the Chinese market
Increasing competition
Chinese social media landscape
Platform Number of active users (millions)
Tecent QQ
843
QZone
755
WeChat
600
Baidu Tieba(forum)
300
Sina Weibo
250
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4. Nature of International HE
High risk
Intangible
Study Destination Evaluation
High quality
information
Effective
communication
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5. Web 2.0
eWOM
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6. Source expertise
Source trustworthiness
Attractiveness
Homophily
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7.  To investigate how social media source
characteristics - expertise, trustworthiness,
attractiveness and homophily influence the
usefulness of information used to evaluate
study destinations.
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8.  Technique: small group interview (4-6 participants)
 Snow ball sampling
 Dual degree
 On shore Chinese students
 Length of stay
 Heterogeneity
 Sample
Brisbane Sydney Melbourne Total
Groups 10 7 5 22
Participants 52 38 20 110
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9.  Two pilot interviews conducted in Brisbane
 Semi-structured interviews
 Nine open-ended questions
 Stimulus
 photo elicitation technique
 Analysis
 Leximancer
 Manual content analysis
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10. Concept Frequency Degree of importance
Student 110 100%
Manager 82 75%
Agent 76 69%
Appearance (Looks) 44 40%
Experience 28 25%
Similar 26 24%
Trustworthy 20 18%
Education 18 16%
Age 16 15%
Details 12 11%
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11.  Trustworthiness is more influential than expertise
“I feel like agents are not as trustworthy as students
as they try to get money from you. They tend to
promote the ones (here means institutions) that offer
the most commission. So most information posted by
agents would be an advertisement, or at least
commercial-oriented” (BF2).
“The students are trustworthy because they are
experiencing overseas life now; they will tell realistic
information about their personal experiences” (MF14).
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12.  Credibility is important
“students post their personal experience
online to share with others, with no intended
purposes” (MF4).
“there is no motive for students to share false
information; it was all about sharing their real
overseas life” (SF11).
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13.  Appearance matters
“I rank the male students first; he looks very
kind” (BM25).
“I rank them based on their appearance…the
female student looks nice and friendly; she
looks like a considerate and thoughtful
person…The last is the manager… just because
he looks like a profiteer” (MF9).
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14.  Similarity makes a difference
“I trust the female students more because
females have similar problems and it’s easier
for us to communicate” (SF9).
“I rank the male student first; he wears
sporting clothes which might indicate that he
loves sports. This is very similar to me. I feel
people who love sports would be quite open
and straightforward, easy to communicate
with, and also, we have a similar age”
(MM10).
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15.  One of the first attempts to identify the
social media communication cues that
influence student’s perceptions of study
destinations.
 Findings suggest organisations to pay
attention to online source cues that trigger
higher perceived information usefulness and
develop effective social media marketing
strategies
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16.  Used choice-modeling techniques to further
investigate the relative importance of social
media communication attributes, such as
message, and receiver characteristics
 Identified and profiled Chinese student
segments based on preferences of social
media attributes
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17. Lavender Shu (UQ):
mengya.shu@uqconnect.edu.au
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