Considering the definition of social media marketing put forward by Sanz-Blas, Buzova and Miguel-Romero (2019) as an activity that fosters networking and facilitates communication among social media users, one has to recognise the evolution in the field of marketing. Progressing from a static approach in the 1950s (Hien et al. 2020) to a more dynamic paradigm in the 1990s and 2000s (Krishen et al. 2021), this evolution has empowered organisations to leverage online platforms for the purpose of increasing brand awareness (Ramadhani & Mulyowayudi 2020). Furthermore, it must be recognised that social media marketing has contributed to technological progress by enabling consumers to actively share information among themselves and with organisations (Saydan & Dulek 2019). Acknowledging this, marketers now view social media as an essential and vital part of their marketing strategies, aiming to effectively engage with their customer base (Li, Larimo & Leonidou 2023) and are utilising various social media platforms to promote their products and services to both existing and potential customers (Iastremska et al. 2023).

Recognising that consumers actively use social media to exchange information about brands (Lamola 2019), businesses capitalise on these platforms as cost-effective marketing tools, particularly in resource-constrained environments where campaigns can be launched using minimal resources (Bonilla et al. 2020). Additionally, social media is an alternative communication tool that enhances relationships through customer engagement (Fraccastoro, Gabrielsson & Pullins 2021), and has transformed the marketing landscape, providing significant benefits, including increased customer brand awareness (Jeswani 2023).

In education, social media has proven to be an effective means of informing and attracting both current and prospective students. This has led higher education institutions (HEIs) to increasingly employ social media for communication and outreach, using their presence on these platforms to share information with audiences at the national, regional and global levels (Adegbuyi et al. 2024). As in other sectors, HEIs and organisations are leveraging online marketing platforms to boost brand awareness (Barus 2023; Momen, Sultana & Haque 2020). Consequently, social media has become a catalyst for significant change, playing a crucial role in the recruitment and marketing efforts of HEIs (Mehmood et al. 2021). Several studies confirm the significant influence of social marketing activities. such as interactivity, content sharing, advocacy and brand awareness (Dedeoğlu et al. 2020; Febriyantoro 2020; Luwie & Pasaribu 2021; Zeqiri et al. 2024).

Interactivity refers to the extent to which social media consumers share information with the organisation and other consumers (Cheung et al. 2020). The emergence of interactive social media has facilitated marketers to communicate with numerous current and potential consumers (Appel et al. 2020). With the evolution of marketing and its related functions, marketing communications are no longer monologues but have developed into interactive exchanges with consumers and stakeholders (Mulyana, Briandana & Rekarti 2020). Such interactivity presents consumers with opportunities to acquire relational knowledge about the brand (Cheung et al. 2020), and enables organisations to convey positive brand images (Ebrahim 2020), which facilitates the creation of brand awareness of the advertised brand (Febriyantoro 2020). Consequently, organisations must deliver timely, reliable, and relevant information that encourages consumers to engage with the brand and with each other (Aydin, Uray & Silahtaroglu 2021).

In the current information age, social media has become an important platform for consumers to share content (Qin 2020). Consumers are increasingly turning to social media to share user-generated content about products and services offered by organisations (Tuncer & Kartal 2024). Conversely, organisations utilise social media marketing to deliver content to consumers, making social media a vital source of information that aids organisations in decision-making (Khanom 2023). Social media allows potential and current consumers to access information instantly and act upon it immediately (Tajvidi et al. 2020). Therefore, social media marketing is viewed as an informative activity that enhances brand awareness since it provides customers with up-to-date content about the organisation’s products and services (Febrian et al. 2022).

Consumers increasingly rely on peer reviews and comments on social media when making purchasing decisions, as they perceive these platforms as trustworthy sources of brand information (Chen et al. 2022). This reliance enhances social media’s appeal to marketers by fostering customer advocacy, enabling satisfied consumers to share positive feedback and generate viral effects (Jeswani 2023). Social media thus serves as a powerful communication platform, allowing consumers to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with brands and share their opinions and recommendations (Majeed et al. 2022). However, it is of concern that customers are able to write reviews on social media, which organisations do not control (Wong et al. 2021). Notwithstanding the latter concern, social media transforms consumers into brand ambassadors who actively create and disseminate content about products and services (Nkegbe & Abor 2023).

As customers cannot experience products and services directly online, credibility is an essential factor for consumers (Filieri et al. 2021). Consumers increasingly seek information on social media (Mason, Narcum & Mason 2021), and they often regard such information as a trustworthy source, especially among the younger demographic (Zhang & Li 2020). Opinions from family and friends are often prioritised over information from traditional institutions and advertisements (Gildin 2022). Nonetheless, concerns about the trustworthiness of social media content remain high (Meel & Vishwakarma 2020), mainly because these platforms facilitate rapid dissemination of both accurate information and misinformation (Brindha, Jayaseelan & Kadeswaran 2020). The perceived credibility of information usually depends on its origin, as people tend to trust information more when they recognise and are familiar with the source (Flanagin, Winter & Metzger 2020). Interestingly, Oppong (2020) noted that higher levels of credibility are also associated with increased brand awareness. The latter supports the finding of Nguyen and Nguyen (2020) that there is a positive relationship between credibility and brand awareness, as accurate information sources provided by organisations enhance brand awareness among consumers.

Brand awareness is established within brand equity, which can be defined from financial and customer-based perspectives (Tasci 2021). Aaker (1991) developed a multidimensional component-based model with five main dimensions of brand equity consisting of brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and other proprietary assets. According to Aaker (1991), brand loyalty reflects how likely a customer is to switch to another brand, especially when that brand changes, either in price or product features. Perceived quality, which is believed to be a major component of brand equity, refers to the customer perception of the total quality or the brand’s superiority in its performance when compared with other products or services (Beig & Nika 2019). Additionally, brand associations can be defined as the knowledge or images of the brand in the customer’s mind (Beig & Nika 2019) and they contain the meaning of the brand for consumers and may be favourable or unfavourable (Surucu et al. 2019). Proprietary assets are mostly excluded from studies that focus on the direct customer relationship (Tasci 2021). Brand awareness on the other hand, refers to the consumer’s level of awareness and knowledge of a particular product or brand (Tedry & Ellitan 2023). Brand awareness is created through repeated, memorable exposure to brand elements such as a name or slogan (Liang et al. 2024). This supports the views of Padhy and Sawlikar (2018), who proposed that the brand messages should be memorable and different from other messages, presenting a reason to be noticed (Padhy & Sawlikar 2018). The HE sector faces rising competition for students and top scholars because of global student mobility trends and government initiatives promoting recruitment (Teixeira et al. 2022). To improve market visibility and increase market share, HEIS are building strong brands, leveraging digital media to promote their identity consistently and effectively (Scott & Mhunpiew 2021). Consequently, HEIs must strengthen brand awareness to gain a competitive edge (Boinett, Kibet & Jemaiyo 2022). Aaker (1991) argued that when thinking of a brand, there are different levels of brand awareness, namely unawareness of the brand, brand recognition, brand recall and top-of-mind awareness. However, in this study, brand unawareness was not incorporated into the hypothetical model.

Top-of-mind is the highest level of brand awareness, referring to the brand first mentioned by consumers (Hadi, Rini & Sembiring 2020). Wijaya et al. (2020) add that when faced with numerous options, consumers need not consider other brands, even when those brands feature appealing images. A product with strong top-of-mind awareness will likely achieve a larger market share (Dewi, Edyanto & Siagian 2020). Hence, it is essential to enhance brand awareness to gain a competitive advantage (Marolt, Zimmermann & Pucihar 2022).

Maganti (2020) defines brand recall (the second-highest level of brand awareness) as the ability of customers to immediately recall the brand from memory, based on product category. Brand recall is unaided (Priscilla, Hidayat & Supriadi 2022) and is based on a person being requested to mention a particular brand in a product class (Gesmundo et al. 2022). At this level, consumers can recall the brand without any prompts and can thus mention a brand name within a product category when asked (Rehman et al. 2023). According to Maganti (2020), the number of recalled brands is influenced by both individual and product factors, including brand loyalty, awareness, set size and education level. Aaker (1991) suggests that organisations build brand recall through continuous repetition. Therefore, marketers should utilise appropriate digital marketing platforms, such as social media, to help potential consumers recall brands, enabling them to consider the brands that come to mind first (Hidayat et al. 2021).

Brand recognition can be defined as the customer’s ability to recognise the brand through the assistance of a cue or hint that is exposed to them (Hadi et al. 2020). Oyenuga, Ahungwa and Onoja (2021) note that for a customer to recognise a brand, they must have previously seen or heard something related to it. Consumers usually recognise brands when exposed to visuals such as logos, colours and brand names (Wijaya et al. 2020). At the recognition stage, consumers are familiar with the brand but require prompts to remember it (Bergkvist & Taylor 2022). Thus, brand recognition represents a basic level of brand awareness, where recognition can be triggered again through reminders (Hadi et al. 2020). Mazaraki et al. (2021) propose that marketers should use easy-to-spell and pronounce names for their brands that are known, memorable, expressive, yet unique and distinct so that they are easily recognised and recalled by consumers. Since the digital environment offers many stimuli that can influence brand recognition, organisations need to make their brands more appealing than competitors’ brands to increase market share and profitability (Piranda, Sinaga & Putri 2022). As a result, organisations, including HEIs, can achieve brand recognition by repeatedly exposing their institutions’ messages and images through digital marketing initiatives such as online advertising and social media.

Based on the preceding discussion, the following hypotheses are put forward:

Based on the reviewed literature, a hypothesised model was proposed for this study.

Based on the previous literature review, the proposed hypothetical model is presented in Figure 1.

Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the Nelson Mandela University Research Ethics Committee- Human (RECH-H) (No. H-22-Bes-MRK-003).

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants involved in the study. The data is stored in a password-protected Excel file.

The mean scores and standard deviations of items measuring the sub-variables of the independent variable (Interactivity, sharing of content, advocacy and credibility) and sub-variables for the dependent variable (Top-of-mind, brand recall and brand recognition) that were proposed are indicated in Table 3.

The results in Table 3 show that the sub-variables for both the independent variable and the dependent variable had mean scores that ranged from 3.36 to 4.23. The standard deviations ranged between 0.77 and 1.15. The item measuring content sharing (The information provided on my polytechnic’s social media pages is up-to-date) had the lowest mean score (m = 3.36) and the highest standard deviation (SD = 1.15), indicating that respondents differed most in their responses to this item. The item measuring brand recognition (I can recognise my polytechnic name from other polytechnic names) produced the highest mean score (m = 4.23) and the lowest standard deviation (SD = 0.81), indicating that respondents mostly agreed with their responses to this item.

Reliability is essential in research as it establishes sources of prejudice and applies strategies to reduce them (Rahman & Shiddike 2020). The questionnaire was deemed reliable based on the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The researcher considered values ranging from 0.7 and above, suggesting that the items measured a particular construct (Ravinder & Saraswathi 2020). Table 4 presents the reliability results of the independent variable (social media marketing), the independent variable (brand awareness) and the dependent variable’s sub-variables (Top-of-mind, brand recall and brand recognition).

As indicated in Table 4, the Cronbach alpha values for all factors ranged from 0.73 to 0.90, indicating the instrument’s reliability. The following section discusses the validity of the measuring instrument.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed on all items measuring the variables to determine the validity of the data set. In addition, CFA was conducted on all items used to measure the variables to assess the data set’s validity. The model-fit measures with the following thresholds: Chi-square minimum discrepancy divided by its degrees of freedom (CMIN/df) < 3.00 for good fit (< 5.00 for adequate fit); Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) > 0.95 for good fit (> 0.90 for adequate fit); Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) < 0.08 for good fit (< 0.10 for adequate fit); Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) < 0.05 for good fit (< 0.08 for adequate fit); and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > 0.95 for good fit (> 0.90 for adequate fit) (Xie et al. 2024) were used to assess the model’s overall goodness of fit. Table 5 presents the Goodness-of-fit indices for social media marketing and brand awareness.

As shown in Table 5, all the study variables were significant, and all model-fit measures are within their respective common acceptance levels. Therefore, it can be deduced that the factor model yielded a good fit. The factors top of mind, brand recall and brand recognition each had only three items and therefore had the absolute minimum number of items to mathematically calculate the results and thus to default to a perfect model fit. There was a high correlation across all nine items. Figure 2 presents a path diagram for brand awareness and its sub-factors.

The following section presents the correlations among the variables of the study.

Table 6 presents the results of Pearson’s product-moment correlation. This correlation was performed to assess the relationships between social media marketing activities (independent variable) and brand awareness, including its sub-factors (dependent variables).

Potgieter and Doubell (2020) indicate that Pearson’s correlation coefficient varies between −1.00 and +1.00, where values near +1 or −1 suggest a strong relationship, while values close to zero indicate weak relationships. Swank and Mullen (2017) also suggest that |r| < 0.3 indicates a small relationship, 0.3 < |r| < 0.5 a medium relationship and |r| > 0.5 a large relationship. From Table 6, the following correlations can be observed. Social media marketing has strong correlations with top of mind (0.57) and brand awareness (0.54); moderate correlations with brand recall (0.46) and brand recognition (0.39). The strong and moderate correlations between social media activities may be attributed to relatively high mean scores of top-of-mind items that ranged from (m = 3.50) to (m = 3.87). From the correlation results in Table 6, it can be inferred that social media marketing is a digital marketing strategy that influences brand awareness and brand awareness sub-factors in Zimbabwean polytechnics. The regression analysis is presented in the next section.

This study utilised the regression analysis and regression results of social media marketing influencing brand awareness, and the sub-factors are shown in Table 7.

As per Table 7, a regression analysis was conducted to ascertain whether social media marketing is a significant predictor of brand awareness sub-factors (top-of-mind, brand recall and brand recognition). Based on the regression results, social media marketing had a relationship that is statistically significant (β = 0.329, p = 0.000) with brand awareness. Thus, hypothesis H1 relating to social media marketing activities and brand awareness was accepted. The results are consistent with the study by Eid, Abdelmoety and Agag (2020); Kamal et al. (2022), and Rukuni et al. (2020), who found a significant relationship between social media marketing and brand awareness.

The regression analysis results of social media marketing and top-of-mind reveal a relationship that is statistically significant (β = 0.389, p = 0.000) with social media marketing and top-of-mind. Therefore, hypothesis H2 that relates to social media marketing and top of mind was accepted. The results are consistent with the study by Alnsour and Tayeh (2019), who found that social media positively affects top-of-mind awareness. Furthermore, the regression analysis results of social media marketing activities and brand recall reveal a relationship that is statistically significant (β = 0.294, p = 0.000) between social media marketing and brand recall. Hypothesis H3 relating to social media marketing and brand recall was thus accepted. The results are also consistent with the previous results by Alnsour and Tayeh (2019), Badran and Al-Dosari (2025) and Tchelidze (2023), who found a positive relationship between social media and brand recall.

The regression results revealed a significant relationship (β = 0.304, p = 0.000) between social media marketing and brand recognition in Zimbabwean polytechnics. Hypothesis H4 relating to social media marketing activities and brand recognition was thus accepted. The research findings are therefore consistent with the previous study by Alnsour and Tayeh (2019) and Badran and Al-Dosari (2025), who found a positive relationship between social media and brand recognition. Regression results in Table 7 thus state that H1, H2, H3 and H4 were accepted. Based on the regression results, the final model of this study is indicated in Figure 3.

Reviewed literature indicated that currently, there is no study that has been conducted specifically focusing on the context of Zimbabwean polytechnics, specifically analysing the influence of social media marketing on brand awareness and its sub-factors. Furthermore, no study has treated social media marketing as a unidimensional construct and brand awareness as a multidimensional construct in the Zimbabwean polytechnic context in empirically evaluating the influence of social media marketing on brand awareness and its sub-factors. Therefore, the study contributed to the literature on social media marketing and brand awareness, specifically considering the brand awareness sub-factors in the Zimbabwean polytechnic context. The study developed a research instrument that measured the respondents’ perceptions of social media marketing and brand awareness and the sub-factors in Zimbabwean polytechnics. The respondents’ perceptions would assist polytechnic marketers in enhancing brand awareness through social media marketing in an effort to achieve a competitive advantage over other institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, this instrument can also be adapted for other HEIs. The study also proposed a model that can be utilised as a premise for furthering research in polytechnic marketing.

As noted earlier, the study sought to determine the influence of social media efforts on brand awareness and the sub-factors within Zimbabwean polytechnics. Findings from the study demonstrated a significant connection between social media marketing initiatives and brand awareness, including the sub-factors, in the Zimbabwean polytechnic context. Consequently, the study offers the following managerial implications.

Firstly, social media marketing is a marketing activity that uses social networks to enhance brand awareness for organisations. Reviewed literature has also presented social media marketing as a digital marketing activity that enhances brand awareness (Eid et al. 2020). Additionally, social media informs and attracts students; hence, tertiary institutions are increasingly adopting social media to effectively communicate with current students and to attract prospective students (Milian & Gurrisi 2017). As a result, polytechnic marketers should leverage social media marketing strategies such as Facebook and TikTok to improve brand visibility and secure a competitive edge against rival educational institutions.

Secondly, social media marketing is an information activity that provides up-to-date product and service information to customers (Tariq, Khan & Araci 2020). The information activity enables customers to share personal experiences and to engage with organisations. Social media marketing can influence brand awareness as customers can receive important and relevant information as they interact among themselves and organisations through various social media channels (Kumar & Nanda 2019). The study indicates that almost three-quarters of the respondents believed that the polytechnics’ social media pages are an essential source of polytechnic information. Therefore, polytechnic marketers should share current information such as programme highlights, campus events and student spotlights on social media, as social media serves as a vital resource for polytechnic-related information for students.

Thirdly, top-of-mind awareness, brand recall and brand recognition are brand awareness sub-factors that have a major role in measuring brand awareness. Additionally, the mean score results suggest that the respondents had high brand recognition, brand recall and top of mind awareness in the Zimbabwean polytechnic context. As such, polytechnic marketers should focus on improving top-of-mind awareness, brand recall and brand recognition among polytechnic students by utilising social media marketing. Polytechnics could, for example, consider using Facebook and TikTok to improve top-of-mind awareness, brand recall and brand recognition among polytechnic students.

The research indicates that social media marketing strategies, such as Facebook and TikTok, improve brand awareness and its sub-factors within the context of Zimbabwean polytechnics. It is likely that additional social media marketing strategies exist that could also influence brand awareness and the related factors in the Zimbabwean polytechnic environment. Future studies could be conducted to explore other social media marketing strategies and assess their effect on brand awareness, with an emphasis on brand awareness sub-factors in Zimbabwean polytechnics.