Research purpose:
This study is dedicated to assessing which content themes and post formats drive engagement on the Facebook Page of Vietnamese universities, with a focus on the case study of Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST)
Research motivation:
Social media has become a critical communication channel for universities, yet few studies have examined which content strategies
effectively drive engagement in the Vietnamese context. This study seeks to fill that gap by providing Vietnam-specific evidence and offering a replicable framework for developing content strategies in higher education marketing.
Research design, approach, and method:
Starting from 17 themes adopted in prior research, open coding was used to develop keyword sets, which were later validated by 0.5 Jaccard similarity threshold. Multiple rounds of regular expressions (Regex) and STM were used to classify 200 posts from the ten most-followed Vietnamese university Facebook Page, resulting in seven final themes. Subsequently, 389 posts from HUST official Page were analyzed by the same regex and STM approach. Binary dummy variables were then created, and series of
independent sample t-tests were run to evaluate the effects of each theme and format on total engagement.
Main findings:
Six of the 17 themes were found to be significant in the Vietnamese context, with one new theme – highlighted social events –
emerging. Themes related to admissions and overall information significantly increased engagement, whereas academic program
posts reduced it. Text-only posts generated higher engagement, while posts containing external links lowered it.
Practical/managerial implications:
The seven identified themes can serve as a benchmark for other Vietnamese universities. Besides, technology – oriented universities
like HUST are suggested to prioritize admissions and overall information content themes, together with using text – only posts for
actionable updates and limiting off – platforms links to optimize engagement.
