I am grateful to my professors for their invaluable advice and encouragement throughout the entire process of conducting this study. You provided me with the opportunity to contribute to knowledge through this study, for which I am truly grateful.

To my mentors, ….., I am very appreciative of your guidance throughout my life, professional, and academic journey.

(Please include all those you wish to thank and the role they played in this study)

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the study, which focuses on the application of social branding in enhancing the number of students admitted into healthcare training institutions in Singapore. It contextualises the concept of social branding as an emerging component of social marketing that is increasingly being used in institutions of higher education by focusing on the post-secondary healthcare training in the Singaporean institutions. The introduction is made while recognising that health training is conducted in several levels, which begin with attaining basic training in disciplines like nursing and extending to the highly specialised training at the postgraduate level. In addition, it is presented with the knowledge that health training often takes various forms, comprising attendance of lessons in a college or university setting, which is sometimes accompanied with residency to allow the healthcare professionals to practice what they have learned.

The introduction also sets out the problem that the study addresses along with the reason on why this problem is pertinent to healthcare institutions and therefore warranting urgent attention. The aim, questions, and objectives that directed the study are also outlined. The significance of the study of provided to explain the implications of the findings on healthcare training institutions in Singapore, and particularly how social branding can be used by these institutions to increase their student admission rates, which would be beneficial to the institutions in the long-term. Besides, assumptions and limitations of the study are explained to delineate the research activities that were conducted.

1.1 Context

Higher education systems across the world are responsible for preparing the critical workforce for the healthcare sector. The human resource required for effective healthcare systems are trained in higher education institutions comprising colleges, medical and nursing schools, and universities. Students gain the requisite skills in these healthcare institutes following successful completion of secondary education. Governments and the private sector invest heavily in these institutions as part of their social and moral obligation to supply their countries and the world with highly-skilled healthcare professionals. Therefore, healthcare professionals across the world are expected to meet some minimum standard of skill and values regardless of the healthcare institute in which they were trained, yet some institutions and countries are known to produce better quality of doctors, physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals than others. Similarly, some healthcare institutions are credited for being more innovative than others due to their ground-breaking research findings and contributions to the advancement of healthcare. In this regard, some healthcare institutions are deemed to better attend to the social and environmental wellbeing of the communities that they are located better than others, thus guaranteeing them a sustainable social license to operate. In this aspect, healthcare institutions, like other higher education institutions, are under increasing public scrutiny to assess how well they go beyond their basic mandate of training healthcare professionals to improving the wellbeing of the communities and environment around them.

The higher education sector has susceptible to market forces like the other corporate sectors in the world. This means that higher education organizations within the same country and across different countries across the world compete against each other and are even ranked for their quality of training and the expertise of the graduates they churn out. The labour market and specifically, the employers, drive this competition as they demand highly-qualified and knowledgeable human resource to drive their organisations. With many organisations, both for profit and not-for-profit, realizing that human resource is their most valuable asset, they are increasingly demanding that training institutions supply them with well-prepared labour. In this regard, healthcare training institutions with a reputation of producing high-quality professionals enjoy positive sentiments and acceptance by healthcare organisations and the public. Moreover, they are increasingly being urged to train healthcare professionals that can work in a variety of healthcare settings and apply diverse skills that are needed for their ever-changing roles in contemporary society (Crisp & Chen 2014, p. 954). Consequently, healthcare institutions strive to attract highly-qualified faculty members to help them improve the quality and outcome of training. Therefore, the demand for quality healthcare personnel increased the demand for the few highly trained healthcare professional trainers. Notably, many experienced healthcare professionals are forced to double up as trainers in healthcare institutions. Similarly, healthcare institutions, like other higher education institutions, rely heavily on external funding especially for their research activities and infrastructure development. The scarcity of financial resources forces higher education institutions to be highly competitive. In turn, financiers demand that their investments go towards not only improving the quality of training and healthcare advancements, but also benefit the society in the long-term. In this respect, healthcare institutions, as establishments of higher education, compete to attract the highly-qualified students that have successfully completed their secondary education or wish to advance their healthcare careers. Some of them are healthcare providers by having functional hospitals within their campuses in a bid to demonstrate how well their students apply the theory they have learned in class into practice. All these developments underpin the competitiveness among healthcare institutes as employers, educators, and healthcare providers, which is evidenced by the increasing trend towards higher education marketization.

Higher education marketization is evidence of the increasing persuasion of higher education institutions to adopt corporate practices, like marketing. These institutions are now positioning themselves in the highly-competitive education, labour, and services markets through branding and engaging in aggressive marketing activities that are akin to those of for-profit private business enterprises (Sujchaphong, Nguyen & Melewar 2017). Moreover, neoliberal globalisation has increased the competitiveness of higher education institutions beyond their domestic markets into the global marketplace. Under these forces, higher education establishments have embraced the free market global environment in which they are free to develop strategies of taking advantage of the opportunities presented by global markets and gaining a competitive advantage over their contemporaries in the education sector (Ng 2016). These pro-market trends have seen competitive advantage opportunities emerge in areas beyond the core activities of education for higher education institutions and into areas related to social and environmental sustainability.

Social marketing is increasing being embraced by higher education institutions, including those in the healthcare sector. Higher education institutions now apply social marketing to demonstrate that they are not only focused on their training mandate but also committed towards advancing the wellbeing of communities, society and the environment. In this respect, social marketing uses the service thinking paradigm and branding theory to persuade the targeted audience to extend the social license to operate by influencing attitudes and behavioural intentions (Gordon, Zainuddin & Magee 2016). Social marketing is increasingly becoming a critical component in the corporate marketing strategy due to its wide and prompt reach of a targeted large population cost-effectively and efficiently. It leverages technological advancements, such as the internet, mobile devices, and social media networks to reach large portions of the targeted market. With the cost of digital technologies decreasing while its quality is increasing exponentially, social marketing makes economic sense to resource-starved organisations by incorporating influencers and user-content to embolden the social marketing messages of an organisation. Already, healthcare organisations are rapidly adopting social marketing approaches in their corporate marketing activities to cement their position as responsible corporate citizens in society. However, there is little information on prevalence of adoption and the benefits accrued from social marketing in healthcare education institutions.

1.2 Research Problem

The Singaporean healthcare system is rated one the best among high-income countries. Shortage in qualified healthcare personnel is a global challenge due to the limited number of school-leavers with high grades opting for healthcare training. The mismatch of the incentives and disincentives of the healthcare professions continues to fail to attract new students into healthcare training institutions (Tan-Kuick and Ng 2010). Singapore is grappling with an increasing demand for healthcare professionals in the backdrop of an ageing population and increasing incidences of chronic diseases (Au-Yong 2018). Moreover, the Singapore Medical Council reduced the approved foreign medical institutions from 160 to 103 to maintain high quality healthcare professionals and direct students towards the local institutions (Stacey 2019). Further, the Ministry of Health in the country has enabled people to switch to nursing, mid-career, by allowing graduates in diverse fields to undertake a 2-year nursing degree (Au-Yong 2018). Despite these circumstances, Singaporean healthcare education institutions have to compete with overseas establishments for students, faculty and research funding. Moreover, while social branding promises to attract human and financial resources, its application in the Singaporean healthcare institutions has not been studied. Consequently, the potential of social branding in attracting students to healthcare training and thus, raising the admission rates of these institutions is unknown.

Attracting more students to pursue the healthcare profession after completing their secondary education or advancing professional skills for those already in the healthcare industry is critical if the country’s healthcare system is to continue providing high quality healthcare services to Singaporeans. In addition, healthcare professionals are in high demand all over the world, and the country is grappling with the flight of the highly-trained healthcare professionals to other markets around the world. In this respect, more people need to be trained to replenish the healthcare labour shortfalls. In addition, Singaporeans that have been trained abroad need to be attracted back to the country with prospects of furthering their careers in the country. This would encourage them to return home rather that practice their professions abroad, where they were trained. Altogether, Singaporeans healthcare institutions need to leverage social branding practices if they are to compete favourably with others of their kind abroad. However, there is no widely used approach that can be recommended to these institutions, which fits their unique circumstances.

From another perspective, although healthcare institutions, such as hospitals, are used by healthcare training institutions to provide residency to their students, the healthcare establishment do not brand themselves sufficiently as providers of residency training settings. In turn, the colleges and universities training healthcare professionals do not include, involve, or collaborate with, the establishments offering residency in a manner that gains enough attention of the students and public. And even if they do, it is not clear to which extent the shared market initiatives involve social branding.

1.3 Research Aim, Questions, and Objectives

1.3.1 Research Question and Sub-Questions

The aim of this study is to determine the benefits that Singaporean healthcare institutions derive from social branding and a marketing practice. Therefore, this study sought to answer the question, does social branding increase public awareness and service quality, and in turn, the student admission rate and profitability of healthcare education institutions in Singapore? From this question, three sub-questions helped to focus the study further. They are:

How does social branding affect the awareness about healthcare institutions in Singapore?
How does social branding influence the services in healthcare institutions in Singapore?
How does social branding influence admission rates in healthcare institutions in Singapore?

1.3.2 Research Objectives

To answer this question, the study’s objectives are:

To determine the prevalence of use of social branding in healthcare institutions in Singapore
To assess the influence of social branding on the admission rate for healthcare institutions in Singapore
To determine the influence of social branding on public awareness, quality of service, and profitability of healthcare institutions in Singapore

The study hypothesizes that:

HO: Social branding cannot help to improve admission rate for healthcare institute in Singapore.

HA: Social branding can help to improve admission rate for healthcare institute in Singapore.

H1: Social branding improves profitability by increasing admission rate in healthcare institute.

H2: Social branding improves change in services thus increase admission in healthcare institute.

H3: Social branding increases awareness thus allows more people accept admission to healthcare institute.

(I propose the removal of the hypotheses and replace them with the sub-questions included in red above. Testing the hypotheses requires that you have data (raw data and not percentages) for both independent and independent variables. These will then need to be put into a computer program for ANOVA and other multivariate tests and correlational tests. If the data is not available, you cannot test the hypotheses. Please advise)

1.4 Significance of the Study

The significance of this study lies in its contributions to the healthcare institutions, students, and research. Students that are interested in healthcare training in Singapore tend to prefer going to colleges and universities in western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. They feel that studying abroad offers a unique opportunity to experience different cultures and gain more diverse hands-on experience in clinical issues. In many occasions, the parents of these students are the ones that insist on foreign health training because they believe that the quality of healthcare training is more advanced. Moreover, healthcare professionals that have studied abroad encourage others to do so because of the more experiential and practical approach compared to the greater focus on academic knowledge in Singaporean institutions. However, studying abroad is often accompanied by a culture shock that interferes with the demanding studies in the healthcare profession. In this respect, this study would help the health training institutions highlight the benefits they offer over other colleges and universities outside the country.

In addition, the healthcare system in Singapore is reputed for its high quality of services to patients. The healthcare industry is staffed with highly-qualified and diligent individuals who are responsible for the good reputation of the health sector in the country. In this regard, this study would help the healthcare training institutions benefit from the good reputation of the healthcare industry in the country through social branding. In other words, this study would help improve the reputation of Singaporean healthcare institutions by highlighting the benefits they proffer to the society and country, which is a reflection of the quality of training and skills of the workforce. This would help to position the local healthcare institutions favourably against the foreign ones, thus attracting more local and foreign students and consequently, increasing their enrolment. Moreover, the study would help justify why social branding would help attract more students to local healthcare institutions in support of the government’s initiative of increasing the number of locally trained healthcare professionals.

From another perspective, healthcare institutions like hospitals, nursing homes, and medical clinics, play a critical role in providing residency training to healthcare professionals. As such, these institutions are interlinked with colleges and universities offering healthcare courses and programs. Considering that these institutions have a good reputation of providing high-quality healthcare services in the country, this repute can be transferred to their affiliated colleges and universities through social branding. In other words, both the higher education institutions and healthcare establishments can leverage social branding to showcase the benefits of their linkages to the training process and the society in the long-term.

1.5 Assumptions and Limitations

It was assumed that social branding was not a new phenomenon in healthcare organisations in Singapore. Therefore, it is likely that healthcare training institutions in the country had also adopted social branding, considering that they were striving to attract more local students. Moreover, it was assumed that because the country was renowned for its high quality of healthcare services, the healthcare training institutions were likely to employ a diverse array of marketing strategies to strengthen this position to attract more domestic and foreign citizens, along with high quality faculty and large amounts of research funding.

However, the study was limited by the difficulty in enlisting many participants as the primary data sources. Besides, the researcher was handicapped by limited financial and time resources to engage a huge number of participants. Moreover, many participants were not familiar with the social branding term and therefore required detailed explanation so that they could respond to the questionnaire items as accurately as possible.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This section discusses the pertinent and leverage literature that has been published in the last 10 years that would provide insights into the topic of social branding and its influence on student admissions in higher education institutions. The chapter is presented in three sections. The first section discusses the theoretical foundation of the study to reveal the major concepts, models, and theories that guided the study. The second section critically reviews the available literature under several themes that are relevant to the research question. The thirds section addresses the gaps that were identified in previous studies that motivated this study.

2.2 Theoretical Foundations of the study

2.2.1 Concepts of branding

Branding is a marketing concept that is used extensively in contemporary organisations. Branding is a product of efforts by organizations to leverage their human capital, corporate culture and strategic capabilities to create a favourable reputation in the marketplace (Verčič and Ćorić 2018). As such, positive reputation remains one of the most valuable intangible organizational assets that generate a competitive advantage (Verčič and Ćorić 2018). Branding is pervasive in the contemporary business environment.

Brand positioning is the placing of a brand in a market using its distinctiveness and value in the customers’ mind, while brand values are the attributes the customer experiences through the brand personality and emotional association with the brand promise. The brand values tie together the brand proposition as strategy with the brand positioning in a cohesive and consistent structure (Davis 2017). Brand equity is the collection of ‘financial and marketing values associated with the strength of the brand in the market’ (Severi and Ling 2013, p. 125). The five dimensions of brand equity are brand association, brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived brand quality and proprietary brand assets (Severi and Ling 2013). Besides, brand equity can be perceived financially as brand value and from a customer’s perspective as the perceived brand value. Nonetheless, for a brand to be successful in the contemporary environment, it must speak to the attitudes of the audience and recognize the social shift in the market. Abbas (2014) reiterated that brand awareness was about the familiarity about the brand and the ability to remember it among other similar brands. As such brand recall and recognition were vital aspects of brand awareness.

2.2.2 Theories of branding

Several theories of branding have been advanced over time. The customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model by Keller explains the influence of the attitudes of customers towards a brand in the brand’s success (Farjam and Hongyi 2015). By defining brand equity as the different customer responses to marketing activities of an organization, Keller identified 6 elements that characterized the thoughts, feeling and perceptions of a brand. These elements include salience, imagery, performance, judgments, feeling, and resonance.

The resource-based view can explain reputation as a valuable and intangible resource capable of generating sustainable competitive advantage for an establishment (Roper, et al. 2013). Organizational branding was a way of improving the reputation of an organization with the focus being on the image of the firm.

The Brand Flux Model, which is a derivative of the Renaming Process Model, explains the revitalization of a defunct brand, despite numerous futile efforts at making it over (Williams Jr and Omar 2014).

2.2.3 Social branding

Social branding is an emerging concept of branding that is gaining acceptance among contemporary organisations that wish to demonstrate that they are interested in more than just making profits. Social marketing not only highlights the positive social results of an organization, but also employs social networks to advertise these outcomes (Gordon, Zainuddin, and Magee 2016). Social marketing endeavours to create social brands that reflect the social responsibility of a firm through diverse marketing channels such as public relations, social media, print advertising and many others. Marrone (2016) noted that purse strings, policy, partnership and publics were the additional P’s over those used in the marketing mix to define social marketing strategies. Altogether, social marketing targeted the society and consumers.

Kozinets (2014) identified social brand engagement as being pertinent to the marketing impact of brands. Social brand engagement is a customer-centric assortment of connections, creations and communications between customers though brand related images, language and meanings (Kozinets 2014). Social brand engagement can be propagated through evangelism, creative activities, and impactful endorsements (Kozinets 2014). Driven by technological advancements to support social communication and increased emotional commitment by individuals, brands have developed into microcultures and legal social entities that can be shared, owned, and participated and related to (Kozinets 2014). Holt (2016) called the cultural phenomenon of branding the crowd culture, noting that it had changed the rules of conventional branding. He continues to observe that social media expands and democratises subcultures originating from the fringes of society while evading the gatekeepers of mass culture. The crowd culture was sustained through content creation, which organisations leverage in their social branding initiatives to increase social engagement among brand loyalists. Therefore, Holt (2016) associates social branding with cultural branding when the brand champions not only its own core values but also the values of society, which change over time. Cultural branding also helped to disburse and mainstream innovative ideas and therefore, branding efforts should target crowd cultures rather than commodities to differentiate a brand from its competitors.

Social media was the channel of choice for social branding because of its wide reach and cost-effectiveness. Kohli, Suri and Kapoor (2015) and Lund, Cohen and Scarles (2018) observed that social media had wrestled the branding control from marketers and transferred it to consumers. Consumers were co-creating branding content and communication, and disbursing it freely over social media platforms outside formal marketing strategies (Lund, Cohen and Scarles 2018). Kohli, C., Suri, R. and Kapoor, A., 2015) noted that social media had made customers more demanding and discriminating, while favouring niche brands in a competitive environment filled with new entrants and short brand lifespans. Moreover, Khamis, Ang and Welling 2017) argued that social media had facilitated the juxtaposing of a human brand and a corporate brand, thus birthing the social media influencer. Influencers were individuals with a significant following over the social media platforms and whose opinions were held in high regard by virtual communities.

Brand likeability is a term coined to characterize the personality of a brand related to its persuasive ability. Melewar and Nguyen (2014) observed that brand likeability led to increased brand interest, personified quality, positive association, and brand contentment. Similarly, Roper et al. (2013) argued that social media was used as a branding and recruitment tool that could enhance the organizational attractiveness among potential employees and investors. Therefore, branding had tangible and intangible benefits.

Organisations are perceived as social brands when they engage in certain practices that are deemed to address the social and environmental concerns of their clients and the public. For instance, in a study conducted by Schmeltz (2012) on the opinions and perceptions of young people towards the engagement and communication by firms about their corporate social responsibility, the findings indicated that consumers were interested in and expected clear corporate social responsibility communication from firms. They also preferred personalised communication that was relevant and factual. Altogether, CSR communication needed to balance between communicating about “morality and society-centred values” and about “self-centred values and competence” to meet the expectations of the firm and consumers simultaneously (Schmeltz 2012, p. 45). More importantly, Schmeltz (2012) provides an important perspective of young consumers that is relevant to this study when he concluded that organisations needed to change the approaches and media that they used to communicate CSR to this constituency of consumers. Notably, Schmeltz, L 2012) noted that organisations faced challenges in communicating about CSR issues due to the differences in their perceptions of the primary conditions of CSR and the perceptions of society surrounding the firms. For instance, the firms needed to understand that the young consumers had a narcissistic approach to life that was preoccupied by individual needs and goals in life, as well as a “well-developed social conscience” that focused on ethical practices and climate change (Schmeltz 2012, p. 45). In this respect, corporate communication needed to appeal to the young people’s self-centred values and social goals through engagements that promoted the sense of belonging. Nonetheless, Schmeltz, L 2012) called for more studies on the use of digital media to assist CSR communication between firms and youthful consumers.

Green marketing is one form of social branding in which focus is on addressing environmental issues while seeking to improve organisational performance as well (Martinez & Kowalczyk 2013). In this respect, companies can choose to highlight their low environmental footprint in their products and activities to impress the environmental conscious consumers and public through their marketing strategies.

2.3 Critical Review

2.3.1 Branding in educational institutions

Higher education institutions had undergone tremendous changes since the Second World War, which had radically changed the way they conduction their business of education. Notably, Dahan and Senol (2012) traced the changes that had occurred in institutions of higher education since the second world was and noted that before then, they were largely self-governed, self-contained, and isolated from society, focusing mainly on creating and disseminating knowledge. However, after World War 2 and with the advent of globalisation, higher education institutions started experiencing competition for students, faculty and resources, forcing them to adopt business-like operations. According to Dahan and Senol (2012), academics in higher education institutions have resisted the marketization of higher education institutions, which exposes the institutions to the risks of loss of centrality and viability. The two differentiating issues that higher education institutions grapple with when compared to corporate entities is in the definition of “customers” and the roles played by the two entities. Firstly, higher education institutions resist defining students as customers, which is a term commonly used in the corporate world. In this regard, academics feel terming students as customers destroys the core understanding of education (Dahan & Senol 2012, p. 97). Secondly, while corporates focus on producing and selling goods and services, training their workforce, and advancing economic development, higher education institutions have a greater role to play in society. Therefore, adopting a corporate model could narrow and dilute the role of higher education institutions, which is the transfer of knowledge across generations and meeting the needs of society (Dahan & Senol 2012, p. 97). However, most important to this study, Dahan and Senol (2012, p. 97) identifies higher education institutions as social institutions that are expected to socialise and cultivate citizens, influence political loyalties, develop human capital, and promote the pursuit of nationhood among nation-states. This includes having corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies to help them gain a competitive advantage against rivals and positive standing in society. However, higher education institutions could only be true social organisations if they implemented the CSR strategies at the operational level rather than just at the academic level where these strategies are taught.

Chapleo (2015) noted that higher education institutions had been forced to adopt corporate practices including marketing, in the wake of increased competitiveness and high demands from students, funders and society. More importantly, higher education institutions had adopted branding to gain a competitive edge over their rivals in a trend that emerged in the last two decades or so. Han (2014) notes that marketing education institutions was challenging because education was not a tangible product that can be seen, touched, and used by consumers, and its benefits were accrued after an extended period. For this reason, marketing activities in higher education institutions focused on showcasing the benefits of attending the institutions, such as promoting the appearance of campuses, the social life of the students, and the quality of academics. Higher education institutions also marketed their institutions by highlighting the outcomes of attendance, like the rate of acceptance into graduate programs, the rate of job placements, the earning of the alumni, and the athletic opportunities after graduation (Han 2014, 124). Similarly, Pinar et al. (2010) echoed the increasing demand from consumers for brands that were more socially responsible as the reason behind the development of brand ecosystems that reflected the core values.

However, Eldegwy, Elsharnouby, and Kortam (2018) argued that higher education institutions were complex brands because they aimed at catering to a diverse audience comprising of the government, business community, employers, parents and students, and capturing many aspects of the institutions in their brand communications, such as facilities, events, programs, and colleges.

Sataøen (2015) noted that this trend had been instigated by the increasing need for higher education institutions to stand out above their rivals, with some, such as those in Norway, using institutional branding as part of a national branding exercise. Drori, Delmestri and Oberg (2013) added that universities with a long history differentiated themselves using unique logos and emblems, while others highlighted their architecture, mascot, colours and merchandise as branding artefacts.

However, focusing only on external branding to improve the image of the higher education institutions by targeting students predominantly has been faulted for lacking sustainability without internal support from the faculty and staff. Mampaey and colleagues (2019) revealed that many external branding initiatives by higher education institutions risked failure when they lacked the buy-in from internal stakeholders. This was particularly problematic because faculty members in these institutions are independent minded and therefore are averse to top-down approaches of the student-centred external branding, often used to promote “diversity” and “excellence” of the intuitions (Mampaey et al. 2019, p. 232). In this regard, internal branding involves and bottom-up approach and creates internal brand ambassadors that live the brand in their daily behaviour and communication, which provides the necessary support for external branding (Mampaey et al. 2019, p. 232).

Mampaey and Huisman (2016) argued that internal branding was a common rebranding strategy among universities because it allowed the internal community to partake in the brand management strategy. Many higher education institutions used Harvard and Oxford universities as the gold standard to be emulated. In the same vein, Clark, Chapleo and Suomi (2019) noted that successful internal branding required continuous internal consultation and engagement, sustained launching of the brand and consensus among the administrators. In the same vein, Pinar et al. (2010) revealed that brand ecosystems were critical for higher education institutions because they focused on the value creation network, and therefore attended to values of the internal and external constituencies of the institutions.

2.3.2 Benefits of branding for higher education institutions

A study by Wong, Tong and Wong (2017) revealed that the teaching quality significantly influenced institutional branding positively, which, in turn, elevated the students’ satisfaction. Similarly, Hemsley-Brown, Melewar, Nguyen and Wilson (2016) noted that in the United Kingdom, marketization had led to the ranking of universities to position them to attract international students and funding. Already, Duffy and Pooley (2017) revealed that academic websites, such as adademia.edu, had leveraged self-branding and social media to gain popularity among the higher education community. However, Amzat (2016) noted that excellence in universities persuaded students to choose between different institutions and branding brought out these achievements to the public. Sometimes, external partners demanded too much and misused the university brand, which challenged the brand management strategy. Besides, universities often lacked a cohesive brand identity due to fragmentation of the brand management strategy across departments and faculties.

2.3.4 Social branding in higher education institutions

Moon and Orlitzky (2011) revealed that contemporary business schools that included corporate responsibility topics as part of their core courses enjoyed a competitive advantage over those that did not. This was in response to the accusation that business schools were focusing excessively on economic-centred education and training rather than on instilling “social and environmental awareness in future business executives” (Moon and Orlitzky 2011, p. 585). Chaudhry (2014) noted that higher education institutions popularised themselves among employers by including corporate social responsibility topics in their curriculum to develop students that were socially responsible. This was in response to the high demand for socially responsible employees in organisations because of their ability to protect and improve the welfare of society alongside that of the organisation (Chaudhry 2014).

Pharr (2017) uses the term open-source branding to explain how user-generated content was more effective in promoting a brand to the millennials compared to the traditional push approach, which considered the audience as mere consumers of marketing content. He notes that college students are critical in generating branding content through their social media interactions, which has the potential of captivating consumers and going viral. However, Phar (2017) notes that open-source branding transfers the control of marketing messages from the marketer to the consumer, who is the student in this case.

Eldegwy, Elsharnouby, and Kortam (2018) noted that social augmenters enabled students to enjoy social interactions as part of the holistic educational experience. In this respect, many universities and colleges highlighted the quality and level of social interaction opportunities to communicate that they cared about the students’ wellbeing alongside their academic achievements. However, Pinar et al. (2010) echoed the need to integrate fully the alumni and faculty into the core and supporting value proposition initiatives of the higher education institutions to strengthen the brand ecosystem, as part of the a holistic branding strategy.

2.3.5 Student enrolment and admission rates in higher education institutions

Han (2014) reviewed the literature on marketing strategies for recruiting students and college choice processes. He noted that students chose institutions of higher learning in a three-step process that commenced with the development of an aspiration to undertake higher education by attending a university or college, selecting several institutions from the information gathered and preparing for admission by meeting the admission requirements, like taking entrance examinations, and deciding on which institution to attend along with fining the process of enrolling into the chosen institution. In this respect, the decision process was influenced by student and institution characteristics, and the marketing activities highlighted these characteristics. According to Han (2014), to recruit students successfully, higher education institutions needed to communicate effectively with the targeted audiences, who are the millennials. In this case, social media was effective in recruiting students because to appealed for their desire to connect and collaborate with others, which was a distinct attribute of the millennials. However, for social media to be used effectively, it needed to be linked across different social networking sites, be linked to the institutional website, incorporate visuals, like videos, to attract attention, promote interaction and engagement, publicize achievements of students and faculty, accommodate the views of students, staff, faculty, and administration, be updated frequently, and track users (Han 2014).

2.3.6 Gaps in previous studies

The literature revealed that studies in social branding, especially in higher education institutions, were scarce. The few that existed, treated social branding from diverse and fragmented perspectives such as CSR communication, social media engagement, sustainability reporting. This indicates that social branding was not yet well understood or well leveraged by organisations and higher education institutions as a way of promoting their corporate brands.

The literature established that social media was increasingly being used by higher education institutions across the world to improve their competitiveness especially among prospective students. However, few studies treated social media as a channel of social branding. Therefore, it was difficult to determine how well institutions of higher learning understood the concept of social branding despite using social networking sites extensively.

In addition, although the literature documented the increased use of social media for marketing purposes by institutions of higher learning across the world, such studies had not been conducted in Singapore. Moreover, the studies performed on Singapore’s higher education institutions indicate the increasing use of social media to attract and engage students. However, those studying such marketing practices in Singapore did not investigate actually whether social media actually improved the institutions brands or attracted students to the institutions to the level of increasing admission rates.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This chapter details the process with which the study was conducted. The research philosophy underpinning the design of the study is explained. The sampling procedures for the primary and secondary sources are outlined before the data collection methods are detailed. Finally, the procedures used to analyse the primary and secondary data are explained.

3.2 Research Design

The social research philosophy on which this study was based is pragmatism. According to pragmatism, reality is a practical consequence of ideas that are characterised by experiences, practices and processes that are dynamic.

3.3 Sampling Procedure

3.3.1 Primary data

Clustered random sampling was used to enlist participants for this study. The population that provided the participants was clustered into the pertinent stakeholders and interest groups in healthcare education and training. Clustering ensured that these groups were well represented in the study to provide balanced and extensive opinions relating to the research question. In this regard, the clusters of participants comprised of administrators of healthcare education and training institutions, students undergoing healthcare-related training, and members of the public that displayed interest in healthcare institutions in Singapore because they either had children, siblings, or friends attending healthcare training, or were concerned about the quality of healthcare training in the country. Institutional administrators and healthcare students were drawn from all levels of healthcare institutions across Singapore, including polytechnics, medical schools, colleges, and universities. For clusters that were difficult to reach, snowball sampling was used. In this sampling approach, the participants already enlisted through the random sampling process are used to recruit other participants who would have been otherwise hard to reach or convince to participate in the study.

Participants were asked to provide their consent to participate in the study. They were informed about the purpose of the study, their tasks, and rights. Specifically, the participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and that they could exit the study at any point if they felt uncomfortable and changed their minds. Moreover, they were assured that the information they provided would be treated confidentially and be used for educational purposes only. In this respect, the participants were asked to give written consents once they decided to participate in the study and not to provide any information that could be used to identify them when giving their responses. In the end, a total of 30 participants were recruited, with the administrators, students, and the public being represented by 10 participants each.

3.3.2 Secondary data

Secondary data was obtained from secondary sources that are easily available online. The secondary sources were purposively sampled to fit the purpose of the study, which required the researcher to use prior knowledge about the purpose of the study. In this regard, purposive sampling is subjective, selective, and judgemental because the perceptions of the researcher about the sources to include or exclude play a critical role in determining which sources are eventually used in a study. Purposive sampling is also non-probabilistic because the researcher sets that inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine which sources are used and which ones are discarded. Therefore, the inclusion criteria for secondary sources was that they could comprise published materials, in the form of peer reviewed journal articles, government and organisational publications, expert opinions, news articles from reputable media houses, videos of interviews, opinions posted over social media, and any other reliable archived resources. In addition, the resources needed to have been published in the last 10 years prior to conducting the study. In this case, sources published as far back as 2010 were eligible for inclusion. Therefore, publications authored before 2010 were excluded from the study. This ensured that the sources contained current information that was relevant to the study, thus avoiding obsolescence. Besides, the researcher used her personal judgement to pick the publications deemed to be relevant and of sufficient quality to address the research question. In the end, 50 articles met the selection criteria and were chosen by the researcher for use in the study

3.4 Data Collection Methods

3.4.1 Primary data

The primary data was collected using questionnaires that were furnished to the participants that consented to take part in the study. The questionnaires were administered online to enhance convenience to the participants and researcher by avoiding travel time and cost and the need for physical meetings. The questionnaire had two sections. The first part captured the demographics of the participants, such as gender, age, education level, cluster (administrator, student, public), and other pertinent information using closed-ended items. The second part obtained the perceptions and experiences related to social branding as a marketing strategy for healthcare institutions in Singapore. A mixture of closed and open-ended items was used capture data.

3.4.2 Secondary data

An internet search was conducted to access the secondary sources and Google Search and Google Scholar was the preferred search engine. Keywords such as institutional social branding in Singapore, social branding in healthcare education and training institutions, social branding in higher education, and social marketing in higher education were used in several combinations to search for relevant sources. In addition, the search was qualified by date to ensure that only sources published after 2010 were displayed. Once the search delivered possible publications, they were perused for pertinent and relevant information. Google Scholar yielded peer reviewed journal articles and books while Google Search presented news articles, expert opinions, organisational publications, and the like. Moreover, the websites and social media pages of some higher education institutions in Singapore that offered healthcare training as universities and colleges, and residency training, like hospitals, medical clinics, and nursing homes, were studied. The kind of information relevant for social branding, such as vision, mission, and value statements, was studied to reveal how it was being used for branding the institutions. Similarly, socially and environmentally-related information used for branding the institutions, such as the social benefits of studying in these institutions that was promised to the students, corporate social responsibility activities that the institutions undertook, and reporting of sustainability efforts that the institutions were engaged in, were mined from the digital channels.

3.5 Data Analysis Procedure

3.5.1 Primary data

The data was cleaned to eliminate the missing responses. It was then coded and entered into analytical computer software (SPSS). During the analysis, data was categorised into independent and dependent variables. The dependent variables are public awareness, brand equity, social branding on social media, corporate social responsibility initiatives. The independent variable is the admission rate of students into healthcare training institutions in Singapore. Descriptive statistics that were determined include frequencies, percentages, and means.

In addition, the spearman rank-order correlation coefficient was determined to show the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. This statistic is recommended for ordinal variables, such as those presented in the primary data.

The hypotheses were tested using one-way and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). These were qualified further using post-hoc tests, like the Tukey’s honestly significant difference (HSD), to determine where the differences lied, while eta-squared (η²) was used to determine the effect size. All statistical tests were conducted at a significance level (p-value) of 0.05 of 95% confidence level. The null hypotheses that exhibited a significant relationship between the variables (p < 0.05) were rejected and those with a relationship that was not statistically significant (p > 0.05) were accepted. (These parts will be replaced if these statistical tests cannot be performed. As noted earlier, you will need data on public awareness, brand equity, social branding on social media, corporate social responsibility initiatives, and student admission rates in their raw form, which would be a table of the responses from each respondents).

3.5.2 Secondary data

The relevant information was extracted from the secondary sources and arranged into thematic areas. A thematic analysis of the content in the sources was conducted to unearth the overarching themes and subthemes. Themes such as the prevalence of social branding among health care institutions, the admission rates in healthcare training institutions in Singapore and their trends, the social corporate activities used for social branding, the online social marketing strategies used by the healthcare institutions, and challenges of engaging in social branding, were extracted and described. This analysis was used to support that conducted on the primary data.

3.6 Ethical Issues

The ethical issues addressed in this study included the use of informed consent when recruiting participants and enlisting healthcare institutions in Singapore. In this respect, although the participants were informed about the purpose of the study, they were also informed that their participation was voluntary, meaning that they could exit the study at any point. In addition, the privacy of the participants was secured by not using any personal identification information on the questionnaires and their analysis but rather, coding the cases instead. Therefore, the researcher worked with data whose primary sources were anonymous. In the same vein, the confidentiality of the data was guaranteed by storing it in the researchers personal computer and backed up in an external hard disk that was in the possession of the researcher at all times. Moreover, the information obtained from the study was used for educational purposes only, which in this case is for the purpose of the researcher’s graduate studies. Altogether, the study adhered to the ethical research conduct provided by the Code of Good Research Practice of University of Roehampton. However, the study did not pose a risk to the health and safety of the participants as the participants were not required to ingest anything or expose themselves to potentially risky situations.

Chapter 4: Findings, Analysis, and Evaluation

This chapter presents the findings from the questionnaires, which provided primary data, and secondary sources, which provided secondary data. The findings are presented in text, tables, and figures.

4.1 Findings of from Primary data

Sixty (60) participants responded to the questionnaires that were administered online. The participants were categorised into service providers and clients and depending on whether they were the executed the social branding initiatives or were the recipients of social branding activities. In this regard, the healthcare institution administrators make up the stakeholders that planned, designed, and executed social branding activities, while students and the working healthcare professionals constituted the consumers or clients of the social branding efforts by the healthcare institutions in Singapore. In this respect, the client and providers categories were equally represented by 30 participants each. The participants comprising the different categories are summarised in table 1.

Table 1. Participant categories and proportions

Stakeholder group	Participant category	Participant type	No.
Client	Students	Full-time students	25
		Part time students	3
	Public	Working healthcare professionals	2
Service providers	Administrators	Teaching Nursing home administrators	30
Total (N)			60

4.1.1 Demographics of participants

The participants in the client category comprised of 25 students that were attending nursing training and 2 healthcare professionals with basic nursing qualifications, were already working in healthcare establishments, and wished to advance their professional qualifications. The students outnumbered the working professionals from the public by 93% to 7 % respectively. Moreover, 83 % and 10 % of the students attended classes on full-time and part-time basis respectively. Of the 30 clients, 90% were females and 10 % were males. In addition, most of the client participants (80 %) were aged between 16 and 20 years with those above the age of 30 being the least (3 %) as summarised in table 2.

Table 2. Age distribution of the students and working professionals

Age category (years)	Proportion (%)
16-20	80
21-25	11
26-30	6
31-35	3

All these participants wished to major their studies in different healthcare institutions upon completion of their basic nursing training. Specifically, most of the participants wished to advance their studies in acute hospital setting, while only 3 % of them preferred the nursing home setting as illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1. Preferred healthcare institution setting after completion of basic training

In addition, the participants wished to major in different healthcare areas afters completing their basic nurse training with most students and working professionals (30 %) disclosing that they would be interested surgical studies after graduating from nursing college. the summary of preference areas after completion of basic nursing training is provided in table 3.

Table 3. Preferred majors after completion of basic nursing training

Area of majoring	Proportion (%)
Surgical/medical	30
Emergency	13
Paediatrics	10
Gerontology	6
Community health	6
Mental health	6
Palliative care	3
Oncology	3
Others	13

In making the decisions about majoring, the participants revealed several reasons that influenced their choices. Almost half of the participants (46%) valued the availability of career advancement opportunities, while another quarter used the pay-out level as the factors influencing their decisions on the institutions to attend after graduation. Table 3 summarises these findings.

Table 4. Criteria for choosing healthcare institution after completion of basic nursing training

Criterial for choosing institution	Proportion (%)
Potential for career advancement	46
Good pay-out	25
Good reputation	20
Variety in healthcare services	3
Good environment	3
Others	3

The participants in the provider category comprise of 30 administrators from healthcare institutions in Singapore.

(pls add demographics of healthcare institution administrators, like type of healthcare institution, working experience, length of using social branding, etc)

4.1.2 Perceptions of participants regarding social branding

The participants revealed diverse information about social branding, and particularly the effects of social branding of nursing homes. The study revealed that while all the students and working healthcare professionals wished to advance their carriers in healthcare after attaining basic nursing training, most of them (92 %) did not wish to do so in a nursing home. In turn, two-third of the participants had not participated in any activities that had been organized by nursing homes.

Although the participants representing students and working public had come across nursing home advertisements, most of them (60 %) encountered these advertisements over the internet, while the rest saw the advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and over the television, as illustrated in figure 2. Besides, when asked whether they thought that nursing homes should brand themselves, most of the participants (85 %) agreed that nursing homes should brand themselves.

Figure 2. Channels through which participants encountered nursing home advertisements

Similarly, the respondents representing students and working public revealed the amount of time they spent on social media platforms every day. Specifically, 48 % of them revealed that they spend between 2 and 3 hours per day using social media, while another 17 % spent more than four hours a day on social media, as illustrated in figure 3.

Figure 3. Hours spent on social media per day

Regarding the influence of social branding, the participants were almost unanimous (97 %) in agreeing that that social branding of healthcare training institutions influenced their choice of which training college to attend. In the same vein, 84 % of the respondents felt that social branding would help attract healthcare professionals towards nursing homes. Similarly, 80 % of the respondents agreed that nursing homes needed to spend more money and effort towards social branding, while the remaining 20 % found no need for additional resources into social branding. This is because only 3 % of them felt that the social branding in nursing homes was sufficient currently, as illustrated in figure 4.

Figure 4. Perception about the current level of social branding in nursing homes

Regarding the effects of social branding, both stakeholder groups (clients and administrators) gave their opinions. Notably, 80 % of the participants felt that social branding by nursing homes helped to create public awareness about the healthcare institutions.

However, 76% of the respondents representing the healthcare institution administrators agreed that social branding of nursing homes helped to improve their acceptance by the public, while only 18 % disagreed while 6 % were noncommittal. Likewise, majority of the participants (60 %) agreed that social branding of nursing schools helped to increase their admission rates and profitability in the long-term. Contrastingly, although 20 % the participants disagreed that social branding has no effect on admission rates and profitability, the remaining 20 % could not decide whether social branding was beneficial to nursing homes or not.

In a different dimension, slightly over half of the administrators (53 %) felt that social branding helped those seeking to advance their healthcare careers to understand the healthcare services required in nursing homes, while 9 % of them were indecisive. Besides, there was an almost unanimous agreement among the administrators (90 %) that if nursing homes were to change their service to meet the demand and preferences of the clients and public, and promote these using social branding, nursing homes would experience higher admission rates from nursing students.

(Note: could you supply admission rate information from administrators and how they have changed since the institutions opened social media networks?)

4.2 Findings from secondary data

4.2.1 Conceptualisation of social branding in higher education institutions in Singapore

Although there were limited secondary sources dealing with social branding in the higher education institutions specifically, several sources dealt with the use of social media instead. The institutions used social media because they targeted he millennial students who are known to spend significant time on social networking sites. Moreover, students and the public could access information on through social media promptly, cheaply, and conveniently through mobile devises, which were prevalent among this cohort.

Tertiary institutions in Singapore made several socially-related and environmentally-related promises to their local and international students. These promises and commitments were included in their vision, mission, and value statements, their marketing artefacts, and in their promotional activities. Table 5 summarises some of the socially-related assurances that institutions of higher learning that provides healthcare courses and residencies made to their students. Similarly, summarises some of the environmentally-related promises that these institutions made to the communities around them and society in general are included in the summary.

Table 5 Socially-related and environmentally-related promises

Institution	Vision, mission, value statements	Socially-related promises	Environmentally-related promises

4.2.2 Use of digital technologies and social media by higher education institutions in Singapore

An investigation of higher education institutions offering medical courses revealed that most of them had websites through which potential students could access information. The higher education institutions in Singapore had numerous configurations, including universities that offered full-time and part-time undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate courses. There were also colleges, medical institutes, and polytechnics that offered certificate, higher certificate, diploma, and short courses in healthcare-related professions.

The websites on these institutions relayed various kinds of information, although most information was about the courses provided, admission requirements, and location of the institution. However, the websites showcased several reasons why students should choose them, with many of them promoting the appropriateness of their courses, the quality of their teaching, faculty, and facilities, and the exciting life and experiences for students.

However, none of the websites investigated had any information about what corporate social responsibility activities they undertook in the society.

Moreover, many websites had information targeting students mainly, with information for other stakeholders, such as faculty, donors, government, and the public being hidden from plain sight or being presented in other webpages and publications by the institutions.

In addition, many of these websites had social media links of their landing pages of their websites.

Tripathi (2013) disclosed higher education institutions were embracing modern marketing strategies to promote their brands. Specifically, in chapter 11 of Tripathi’s book titled Marketing strategies for higher education institutions: Technical considerations and practices, Leng from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who wrote the chapter noted that private higher education institutions offering degree courses in Singapore were using social media platforms as marketing communication tools to supplement traditional marketing channels (2013, p. 164). The traditional marketing tools used by these higher education institutions included campus tours, open house days, mass media, and direct marketing that targeted school leavers. However, increased competition among these institutions and market orientation of the higher education sector was causing many private higher education institutions in Singapore to adopt social marketing strategies.

Leng (2013) also revealed that Singaporean students were increasingly seeking information about colleges and universities, and the higher education institutions were responding by using social network sites to engage potential students and members of the public and providing their brands a shared cultural meaning. Moreover, Facebook was the most common marketing tool used by these institutions. However, Leng (2013, p. 164) noted that the use of social media marketing was still in its infancy among universities and colleges in the country.

In addition, Qi and Macke (2014) gave an example of a university in Singapore that as using social media creatively to enhance engagements with its students and build its brand. The university used a competition to determine the student that generated the most engagement over social media. Specifically, the students were required to “like” the social media page of the university and post a comment, share it, and encourage friends to “like” it as well. The student that generated the most “likes” from this engagement was awarded an iPad.

The most common social media networks that the institutions had accounts included Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, three of the seven institutions had YouTube channels, while only one had an iTunes U account. Also, one college did not have any social media presence and offered communication using telephone, email, chat, and a newsletter. The summary of the social media network links available on the websites of institutions of higher education offering health courses in Singapore is provided in table 5.

Table 5. Social media presence of higher education institutions in Singapore

College/ University	Courses offered	Social media links
		Facebook	Twitter	YouTube	Instagram	LinkedIn	iTunes U
Nanyan Technological University	Undergraduate Graduate PhD
Parkway College	DiplomaUndergraduate Short courses
Ngee Ann Polytechnic	Diploma
Nanyan Polytechnic	Diploma
HMI Institute	CertificateHigher certificateShort courses
National University of Singapore	Undergraduate Graduate
Singapore Institute of Technology	Undergraduate

Their social media pages were studied to identify the kind and level of engagement. Specifically, Facebook and Twitter pages of several colleges offering healthcare courses were inspected to determine the number of likes, follows, and ratings. The year that the institutions opened their Facebook and Twitter accounts was noted as well. In addition, those institutions with YouTube channels were inspected to determine the number of subscribers. These findings are summarised in table 6.

Table 6. Social media engagements of higher education institutions in Singapore

College/ University	Facebook				Twitter		YouTube
	Likes	Follows	Rating Out of 5	Year joined	Followers	Year joined	Subscribers
Nanyang Technology University	258,951	262,152	4.5	2011	18,100	2010	9,430
Nanyang Polytechnic	62,272	62,810	4.4	2009	8,621	2009
Ngee Ann Polytechnic	63,703	64,221		2008	12,500	2009	2,790

Most higher education institutions opened their social media accounts back in 2009, with the earliest being in 2008 and the latest being 2011. Nanyang Technical University stood out in the number of likes on its Facebook page, along with having the highest number of Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers despite having opened social media accounts after the other institutions investigated.

4.3 Evaluation of findings

The primary and secondary data revealed that most healthcare institutions were familiar with social networking sites, which they used to advertise their brands, showcase their services, and engage prospective students and the public.

Chapter 5: Discussion and Recommendations

In this chapter, the findings of the study and results of the analysis are discussed to place them in the context of the aim set for the study, which is to determine how social branding can be used to increase the rate of student admissions into healthcare institutions in Singapore. Thereafter, recommendations on how the Singaporean institutions can leverage social branding to enhance their student enrolment are provided.

5.1 Discussion

5.1.1 Conceptualisation of social branding by higher education institution offering health courses in Singapore

Many institutions of higher education in Singapore have vision, mission, and value statements that contain some social benefits that the institutions intend to deliver to its stakeholders and society. For instance, inclusion of diversity as part of the core values of these institutions implies that they are intent on delivering social justice by democratising education and eliminating discrimination based in ethnicity, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and nationality. Other institutions highlighted the richness of the students’ experiences during their educational journey on their institutions. They noted that students that enrolled in their colleges benefited not just by receiving a high-quality education or training but also gaining valuable soft skills that would enable them to go through life successfully after graduation. For instance, colleges and universities promised to provide students, especially those from outside Singapore, with an exciting cultural experience during their stay in the country.

The institutions also highlight the social benefits that students can obtain by their enrolment and full participation in the institutional programs. For instance, many institutions claim that they help the financially-deprived by offering them funding through scholarships. This is aimed at avoiding discriminating students from accessing higher education based on their financial ability.

Social branding was considered as mainly the use of digital technologies and social media tools for marketing purposes. This approach has been embraced by almost all of the higher education institutions and the institutions that offer residency, because they have institutional websites, which are linked to several popular social networking sites.

5.1.2 Conceptualisation of social branding by health care institutions offering residency programs in Singapore

Healthcare institutions that partner with higher education institutions to train healthcare professionals also include the social benefits they intend to deliver in their vision, mission, and value statements. For instance, the institutions claim that they intend to promote the health wellbeing of the members of the communities in which they exist.

5.1.3 Prevalence of social branding in healthcare training institutions in Singapore

The findings revealed that healthcare institutions used social media marketing that targeted students because of the much time they spent on social media. Therefore higher education institutions were strategic in the choice of social media networks, considering that they used the platforms that were most popular among the youth in the country.

5.1.2 Influence of social branding on the quality of services in healthcare training institutions in Singapore

The findings revealed that healthcare institutions in Singapore showcased their services over social media.

5.1.3 Influence of social branding on student enrolment rates in healthcare training institutions in Singapore

The results revealed that social media influenced the choices of healthcare training institutions made by students in Singapore.

5.2 Recommendations

From the findings from this study, it is recommended that:

Healthcare training institutions should engage the public more on social media platforms by initiating conversations rather than simply providing a platform for allowing the students to engage each other. This means that the healthcare training institutions should generate topics that address pertinent healthcare training issues and guide the online conversation towards the benefits that training in the institutions would proffer to students. This requires that the colleges and universities have social media administrators who help the institutions start online conversations frequently across several social networking sites.
The healthcare training institutions should engage in joint social branding with their residency partners. This means that the two entities need to develop common marketing strategies that highlight the strengths of their partnerships and their benefits to students and society. This requires that the websites of each institution has links to the website of the other. This would facilitate those that access the landing page of the website of the higher education institution or residency training institution to access the website of the other though a hyperlink. This hyperlink should be located in as many places in the website as possible, including in the online conversations initiated by the institutions over social media.

Chapter 6: Conclusions

Social branding remains a little understood marketing concept in education circles. This study sought to determine how social branding helped to improve the admission rate for healthcare training institutions in Singapore. Despite the use of various approaches and conceptualisations of social branding in institutions of higher education in Singapore, which was similarly to other institutions across the world, the role that social branding as a component of the marketing strategies of these institutions was evident.

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