Table 1: UJ SOS Student Engagement indicators on TikTok and Instagram Platform Followers Posts Views Likes Comments Shares South Africa TikTok 7389 202 17 053.93 in the last 7 days 70 800 + +9% +167 % 97.6 Instagram 1703 181 5412 in the last 7 days 14 403+ 480 engagements - 91.6 References Ansari, J. A. N. & Khan, N. A. (2020). Exploring the Role of Social Media in Collaborative Learning the New Domain of Learning. Smart Learn. Environ, 7(9). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7. Cho, V. & Lam, W. (2021). The Power of LinkedIn: How LinkedIn Enables Professionals to Leave their Organisations for Professional Advancement. Internet Research, 31(1), 262-286. Chugh, R. & Ruhi, U. (2018). Social Media in Higher Education: A Literature Review of Facebook. Educ Inf Technol, 23, 605–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-017-9621-2. Greenhow, C. & Lewin, C. (2018). Social Media and Education: Reconceptualising the Boundaries of Formal and Informal Learning. Routledge. Li, Y. 2021. Communicating COVID-19 information on TikTok: A content analysis of TikTok videos from official accounts featured in the COVID-19 information hub. Health Education Research, 36(3), 261–271. https://doi. org/10.1093/her/cyab01. Sarwar, S., Zulfiqar, S. and Chandia, K. E. (2018). Usage of Social Media Tools for Collaborative Learning: The Effect on Learning Success with the Moderating Role of Cyberbullying. Sage Journals, 57(1), https://doi. org/10.1177/0735633117748415. Zachos, G., Paraskevopoulou-Kollia, E. A., & Anagnostopoulos, I. (2018). Social Media Use in Higher Education: A Review. Education Sciences, 8(4), 194. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8040194. It is worth noting that 74 per cent of followers on TikTok are between the ages of 18-24, and the same age group accounts for 52 per cent of followers on Instagram. The table above shows that the pages have grown over the years. In a week, there were 17,053 views on TikTok and 5412 views on Instagram, on average. Comments and shares are received from followers and non-followers. Influencers use hashtags such as #UJSOS, #Orangeblood, #UJADC, #ujstudents, #ujreps, #ujalltheway, etc to streamline content intended for fellow UJ students. The UJ SOS influencers project is a sustainable and ongoing project that will coninue to assist undergraduate students in meaningful ways. Instagram had 1705 followers, 91.6 per cent of them were from South Africa’s main cities. Some 46.6 per cent were from the City of Johannesburg at the time of writing this article. This was to be expected, given that UJ is located in Johannesburg. Moreover, the page was mostly active between 9 am to 9 pm, with 6 pm being the peak period. Given that the ways of seeking knowledge have developed and formal and informal ways of learning may be established using social media (Zachos et al., 2018), social media can be used positively to promote student success, just as it can be used to enhance academic performance, support students and communicate with students effectively (Sarwar et al., 2018). The analytics indicate that students may be making use of the UJ SOS pages during the indicated times to enhance their knowledge about support services, academic support and to access important announcements shared with them online. On Instagram, the content posted is mostly reels and infographics that speak to studying smarter and utilising the support services available at UJ. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2024 84
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