Global trends in digital transformation and media positioning of universities in social networks

Tomyuk O.N., Diachkova A.V., Novgorodtseva A.N. (2022) Global trends in digital transformation and media positioning of universities in social networks. Digital Social, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 64–75. For modern universities, social media is a competitive environment and a platform to increase their brand awareness in global and national rankings and promote educational, scientific and innovative services to a social media audience using marketing tools. The positioning of a modern university in social media is an activity focused on presenting the university and its services in the most advantageous way, popularising science. The aim of the study is to examine global trends in the positioning and digital transformation of university media activity in social media based on open statistical data. The authors analysed university presence indices in eight social networks (VK, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, Twitter, OK, Tik-Tok) of universities from the top 10 media activity rankings (2021), taking into account the specifics of each social network. The universities with the maximum media presence in each social network are highlighted. It is noted that a prominent presence on social media is based on working on the university’s positive media image and implementing global media positioning trends into strategic development. Two different strategies for positioning in the media space have been detected, and social networks with great potential for positioning higher education institutions in terms of age and the market segment capacity they cover are noted. The study can be useful to sociologists, economists, marketing experts and university professors. Olga N. Tomyuk

For modern universities, social media is a competitive environment and a platform to increase their brand awareness in global and national rankings and promote educational, scientific and innovative services to a social media audience using marketing tools. The positioning of a modern university in social media is an activity focused on presenting the university and its services in the most advantageous way, popularising science. The aim of the study is to examine global trends in the positioning and digital transformation of university media activity in social media based on open statistical data. The authors analysed university presence indices in eight social networks (VK, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, Twitter, OK, Tik-Tok) of universities from the top 10 media activity rankings (2021), taking into account the specifics of each social network. The universities with the maximum media presence in each social network are highlighted. It is noted that a prominent presence on social media is based on working on the university's positive media image and implementing global media positioning trends into strategic development. Two different strategies for positioning in the media space have been detected, and social networks with great potential for positioning higher education institutions in terms of age and the market segment capacity they cover are noted. The study can be useful to sociologists, economists, marketing experts and university professors.

INTRODUCTION
Developing global trends in the field of educational, scientific and innovative activities universities strengthen their positions in global and national rankings due to their competitive advantages and their media activity in the Internet space. Global trends in the positioning of universities are associated not only with digital transformation, but also with the emergence of new media formats. The media activity of universities in the Internet space and especially in social networks is aimed both at cre ating a positive image of the university and at promoting the university's brand among a large number of Internet users around the world.
This actualizes the problem of studying and assessing the media positioning of modern universities in the context of global digitalization.
The aim of the study is to study global trends in the positioning and digital transformation of the media activity of universities in social networks.
For the study, we selected universities that are in the TOP-10 according to the Ranking of University Media Activity (M-RATE, October 2021). The overall rating of university media activity 1 is based on the results of three media ratings: rating of university presence in social networks (Social Index) 2 , university rankings by media relations (Index Mass-Media) 3 , site development rating (Index Site) 4 . In our research, we focused on the study of the university presence index in eight social networks: VK, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, Twitter, OK, Tik-Tok. For modern universities social networks are both a competitive environment in the Internet space, and a platform for promoting the university's brand, a line of educational, scientific and innovative services. In the Internet space and the media sphere, modern universities popularize not only higher education, but also science.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The Internet is the foundation of mediatization, transmediation and remediation, since recently it has united almost all forms of production and distribution of media [Markhamm, 2019]. The Internet has become a daily practice not only for individuals but also for corporations, businesses and universities. Like other actors, uni- versities are trying to use the Internet infrastructure, including for commercial purposes -to increase consumers of educational services. Thanks to the Internet space, the loyalty of the target audience is maintained, communication is carried out with a wide range of people through various platforms, for example, social networks, each of which unites a more or less homogeneous sociodemographic group.
The Internet is "embedded, embodied and everyday", that is, it has become a common way of carrying out interactions between different people and organizations [Hine, 2015]. For example, it has been noticed that it is easier for applicants to write a message through social networks and receive a response from the university admissions committee than to call or come for a personal consultation. Speaking about students, one can turn to the study of the daily use of Twitter in the educational process as a factor in increasing student motivation to learn and receiving regular feedback [Nicholson & Galguera, 2013]. Continuing this logic, M. Poore notes that modern education should be complemented by modern digital technologies that prepare students for building a career in a highly competitive digital society [Poore, 2011]. As Russian researchers note, students are actively involved in "media creativity", commenting, making reposts, but still Russian students prefer media consumption [Atsuta, 2018].
Information networks, according to M. Castells, or the "web of relations" according to G. Zimmel, emphasize the importance of transforming the nature and direction of relationships between people in the Internet space [Castells, 2004;Zimmel, 1996]. Thus, M. Granovetter notes that "strong ties" form a stable local network of interaction, while "weak ties" in social networks allow information to spread faster and more widely [Granovetter, 2009]. Thus, the effect of the "strength of weak ties" is associ ated with the capture of more and more new participants in the process of informing, positioning a certain brand, which may be a university brand [Granovetter, 2009]. Consequently, social networks for universities and their audience can perform various functions, including communication (establishing contact), informational, socializing, the function of forming identity (especially through thematic posts and hashtags), entertainment 5 [Sadygova, 2012]. Thanks to social networks, universities can carry out contactless audience research [Kryshtanovskaya, 2018]. All these evidences emphasize the important role of the digital transformation of the social institution of edu cation, and it is logical that the state regulation of their activities in the Internet space becomes more interesting through the analysis of the efficiency of the university's media activity.
The Media Activity Ranking of Russian Universities (since 2021) emphasizes the importance of researching the brand of the university and the nature of working with the target audience at a new level. Monitoring is regularly supplemented with new indicators, new ratings. Researchers note that a certain position in the ranking often becomes the basis for a PR strategy for positioning a university [Tsorina & Kaliyeva, 2017]. "Rating" is determined by an important indicator of the effectiveness of the university [Brikota et al., 2020]. It is logical to assume that the emergence of a new rating will stimulate universities to increase their competitive advantages and capture an ever-larger Internet space, for example, through the expansion of their media positioning in the spectrum of social networks.
As the researchers note, the measurement has already been carried out, including the media activity of universities through national ratings -the national university ranking of the International Information Group "Interfax". However, the advantage of the M-RATE rating is its focus on transparency and analysis of open information of the media activity of universities, without taking into account expert assessments [Petrosyants et al., 2015;Chaplygin, 2017]. This became available due to the use of mathematical methods of information influence and collection of statistical data on Internet sites, including the number of subscribers, likes and reposts [Vasilenko, 2020;Meshcheryakova, 2020].

METHODS AND MATERIALS
To analyze the media activity of universities in theoretical and methodological terms, an emphasis is placed on works on digital society [Meshcheryakova, 2020], digitalization of universities [Guz, 2020], the potential of social networks of marketing strategies in educational organizations [Donina, Shaidorova, 2018] and the brand of the university [Brikota et al, 2020;Kovalev, 2016]. The study is based on the theory of communication and the effect of "the strength of weak ties", which makes it possible to understand the role of subscribers and their activity on the potential for promoting universities [Granovetter, 1973].
Work with open access materials was carried out consistently. At the first stage, the Rating of media activity of educational institutions of higher education and the adopted set of indicators (analysis of secondary information) were used. Here, the key was the definition of the TOP-10 universities of the Russian Federation in the Ranking for October 2021. At the second stage, the focus shifts to a specific group of indicators -the Social Index (analysis of secondary information), which allows to identify the involvement and prevalence of universities in social networks. At the third stage, social networks are ana lyzed, the target audience is described, the number of authors per month and the number of messages in them, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the eight social networks are highlighted. At the fourth stage, primary information was collected, which is widely available in the public domain through the official accounts of universities in social networks. Taking into account the peculiarities of the functioning of each social network, indicators of the representation and activity of universities in them were recorded.
The key is a comparative analysis, in general, it is not supposed to identify an ideal university with maximum indicators for all possible criteria, the main thing is to compare the rates of presence and activity of universities in eight social networks. Obviously, various social networks have their own target audience, mechanisms of communication with the audience, suggest a special focus for effective interaction. In a situation of high competition in the educational services market, additional formats and opportunities for targeted communication arouse research interest, and the digital transformation of the media sphere offers ample opportunities for analyzing open data on statistics of subscribers, photos, videos, likes, reposts and many other criteria. All this, in turn, underlines the importance of the development of digital sociology as a branch of sociological knowledge.
The empirical study included descriptive statistics: calculation of maximum, minimum and average values; based on the data obtained, the range of variation; standard deviation and coefficient of variation. The obtained values are necessary to assess the homogeneity of the sample, namely, to what extent the TOP-10 universities differ in their indicators of media activity, which will make it possible to identify different vectors of the universities' strategy in their media policy.

RESULTS
One of the facets of global trends in positioning and digital transformation of the university is the media activity of the university in the Internet space. The Priority 2030 strategic academic leadership program was launched in July 2021, an independent rating of media activity of 219 universities has been conducted monthly. In our research, we have applied to the results of the Rating of Media Activity and highlighted the TOP-10 universities ( Table 1).
The TOP-10 includes universities from different cities of Russia: four universities from Moscow, one university each from Perm, Ekaterinburg, Kazan, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Belgorod. In terms of types, we point out that the TOP-10 includes 3 federal universities and 5 national research universities. They are included in glo bal and national rankings, occupy positions and strengthen them not only through research, educational and innovative activities, but also through their active media in the Internet space.
It should be noted that the calculated statistical indicators show that the TOP-10 universities have similar indicators in the M-RATE media activity index (the lowest R and SD). However, due to significant differences in these indicators it can be assumed that the studied universities conduct media policy differently. It is interesting to note that universities are more homogeneous according to the Social Index, due to their similar leading positions in social networks.
Various social media are popular in Russia. We will look at the following social media areas: a network for communication -Facebook, VK, OK; -video hosting providing users with video storage services -YouTube; exchange of media content -Tik-Tok, Instagram; -a network for copyright records (platform for streamers) -Twitter; messenger -Telegram.
The level of penetration of the Internet space in Russia is growing every day and is about 85 %, and social networks are used by 67.8 % of the country's population, which is equal to 99 million people (January 2021). Approximately 42 % of 85 % of Internet users use social media to find the information they need. Modern society in the context of global digitalization and digital transformation assigns a significant role to social networks, the popularity and relevance of social media is reflected in Table 2 The leader of the social network by the number of messages per month is VK (Table 1). The number of posts per month on the VK network exceeded almost three times the Instagram. And if you study the statistics of social media by the number of authors per month, then Instagram takes the first place in October 2021, and VK -the second. More than half of the authors on social networks  (Table 3).
According to the indices in social networks, there is also a large dispersion of values (SD is very different from zero) among universities. This suggests that each university may differ in its strategy of working with young users. So, RUDN and PRUE are focused on Facebook,  Compiled by the authors based on the research materials KFU -YouTube, and UrFU, PSU and BMSTU are more present on Instagram. The highest V for the Tik-Tok index is due to the fact that only three universities (UrFU, MIPT and RUDN) focused their activities as much as possible on this social network. Many universities have not yet adjusted their media positioning strategy on the social network Tik-Tok due to the fact that they did not realize its great potential to influence the age group from 16 to 24 years old. A graphical representation of the media activity indices of 10 universities are displayed in Figure 1.
Analyzing the indices of media activity of universities in social media (October 2021), the maximum pre sence in social networks is visualized at the RUDN and the UrFU. Based on the received and processed data, we independently compiled ratings of the presence of 10 universities in eight social networks (Tables 4-10).
In terms of the number of subscribers, the KFU took the first place, then UrFU and the RUDN. The VK social network is popular among users aged 18 to 44. These age categories constitute the target audience of all educa tional products of the university, in this regard, the development of the presence of the brand of Russian universities in the VK social network is one of the important tasks of the media positioning of the university.  (1) Index Instagram (2) Index Facebook (3) Index YouTube (4) Index Telegram (5) Index Twitter (6) Index Tik-Tok (7) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Compiled by the authors based on the research materials  Descriptive statistics conducted on the ranking of the presence of universities in VK confirm the hypothesis about the different strategies of universities in media positioning and work with the target audience in this social network. Thus, a large dispersion is noted in the number of articles. And in terms of the number of subscribers, the group is rather homogeneous, with the exception of the BelSU, which lags behind the average by almost 2.5 times.
According to statistical analysis, the media positioning policy of universities on Instagram (Table 5) is even more different than on VK. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this social network has recently begun to be used by universities as their media platform. If on VK almost everyone had an equally large number of subscribers, then on Instagram the spread is already very large by universities. The data shows which universities have just started their branding in this social network, and who have already consolidated their positions and are actively present in this media space.
The social network Instagram is more relevant among users between the ages of 18 and 34. These age categories constitute the main target audience for some of the univer-sity's educational products. The development of the university brand on the Instagram social network is important for the strategic development of the university and better recognition among potential applicants and their parents.
It is important to note that according to descriptive statistics, the media positioning strategies of universities on Facebook are fundamentally different ( Table 6). The differences in the number of subscribers and likes by SD are very significant. In the ranking of the presence on Facebook, the following universities occupy the leading positions in terms of the number of s followers: RUDN, MIPT, PRUE. The content of Facebook is interesting to users aged 35 to 54 years. These age categories are not the main target audience of the university's educational products, but more often than not, most of the users of this network are the parents of potential applicants.
Significant differences are demonstrated by the indicators (Table 7) of the presence of universities on YouTube. Here V is everywhere more than 100 %, and in terms of the number of views, it is almost 200 %. This suggests that the universities represented have different views of the  media potential of YouTube and their target orientation in this media space. In terms of the number of subscribers, KFU took the first place, then the MIPT, the UrFU. But the leading place in the number of views of videos on YouTube video hosting at the RUDN. The media positioning in Telegram among universities (Table 8) is also different, which is supported by data on the standard deviation. The most significant difference is the number of subscribers (SD = 3894.378). Universities underestimate the media potential of this social network, with the exception of UrFU, SFU, PRUE and KFU. Telegram is a social network with analytical content that is more interesting for the 25-44 age group with a high level of employment. This age category of media users is interested in raising the level of their education, they are interested in educational programs not only for bachelor's and specialties, but also educati onal programs for master's and postgraduate studies, advanced training programs. Telegram channels are often used by employers and university partners. In this regard,  However, in terms of the number of tweets and the number of followers, the coefficient of variation is very high, while the standard deviation, which shows the spread in the sample, is very large here.
In terms of the number of readers / subscribers, the UrFU took the first place, then the MIPT, the TSU. The social network Twitter is popular among users aged 25 to 44. The strategic track of the media development of the presence of the brand of Russian universities on the social network Twitter is one of the important tasks of the media positioning of the university in the modern world of media consumption. As part of the study, it was revealed that UrFU on the Twitter social network follows the strategy of positioning its brand through two official accounts in Russian and English, where various content is presented. TOP Russian universities pay almost no attention to OK. It contains the official accounts of only two universities out of ten -the UrFU and the BelSU, while the OK social network ranks third among social networks in terms of the number of messages written per month -85M (October 2021). The OK social network is popular among users aged 25 to 44. These age categories are active consumers of educational, scientific and innovative content in the media sphere.
It should be noted that the calculated descriptive statistics (Table 10) revealed significant differences in the media positioning of universities in Tik-Tok. So, the standard deviation reaches the highest values in terms of the number of views by hashtag of the university, then there is a significant difference in the number of likes.
In terms of the number of subscribers to TOP-10 universities, the group is absolutely heterogeneous (V = 169.76 %). It is interesting that the lowest value of the coefficient of variation in this table in terms of the number of views (V = 60.88 %), the group is less heterogeneous. If we exclude the BelSU with the lowest value, then V decreases to 50.8 %. This indicator shows the potential of the Tik-Tok media platform. The media audience shows great interest in the stories in Tik-Tok and actively watches them.
In the ranking of the presence of 10 universities in the social network Tik-Tok. In terms of the number of subscribers, the RUDN took the first place, then UrFU and the BMSTU. The social network Tik-Tok is the youngest among Russian users and more relevant among users aged 16 to 24. Modern universities, in their media positioning strategy, should focus on creating interesting content for users of the Tik-Tok network in order to form a positive image of the university among young people. This category of Tik-Tok users is the target audience for all universities.

DISCUSSION
After analyzing the collected open data on the presence of 10 universities in eight social networks it was revealed that the TOP Russian universities that occupy high leading positions in media activity ratings are intensively working to form a positive image of the university for users of social networks. In the process of media positioning, the university independently chooses social networks in which the maximum presence is manifested. It was revealed that the following universities have the maximum presence in social networks: the first place is UrFU, the second is RUDN, the third is KFU.
Modern universities are simultaneously working to form a positive image of the university and daily work not only on new media content, but also follow new trends: timely expansion and replenishment of the line of icons on the official website of the university, in the official Compiled by the authors based on the research materials accounts of the university in social media, which forms a competent media consumption of official information; -expanding its presence in the Internet space and promoting the university's brand in other social media, for example, such as WeChat, LinkedIn, Twitch, Snapchat, LiveJournal, Likee, Clubhouse; formation of media content about the university in specific social networks, taking into account the needs and age group of the target audience of social network users; creation of media content about the university, taking into account the peculiarities of the direction of the social network: from a network for communication and exchange of media content to a network with copyright records and video hosting.
The universities have different strategies for positioning in the media space. One vector of strategic media positioning is concentration on individual social media platforms, and the second vector, using the example of the UrFU, is the coverage of all available social networks with high-quality media content about the university.
Tik-Tok, Instagram have great potential and the capacity of this segment of the media market is very large for a multi-aged media audience around the world.

CONCLUSION
For modern universities, social networks are a competitive environment, a platform for promoting the university's brand, educational, scientific and innovative services. Media positioning of the university allows the university to strengthen its position in the market of educational, scientific and innovative services and to create the desired image of the university brand in the minds of media consumers to create the desired university image (brand) in the minds of consumers.