Sarthak Sengupta and Anurika Vaish
Social media has witnessed an enormous increase in its usage in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid spread of social networking platforms has been observed due to the sudden implementation of online pedagogy for maintaining travel restrictions and social distancing norms. The relevant studies pursued on social networking and higher education were explored. The study was based on primary and secondary data. Subject matter experts were consulted to conduct virtual brainstorming sessions and the Delphi method with the help of social media to get the relevant set of keywords. Various stakeholders were consulted to derive novel findings regarding different perspectives. Further research studies were explored regarding these frequently used social networking platforms in higher education. A primary survey-based questionnaire was also circulated among the stakeholders of higher education institutions during the Coronavirus crisis. The secondary data was collected from leading research databases across the world. All the motivational studies and relevant research papers extracted for this study were explored thoroughly. Various statistical tools and required software were used. The analytical techniques done in the study were bibliometric analysis, year-wise analysis of research publications, citations, word cloud, thematic map, thematic evolution, keywords-based co-occurrence network, country-based publication analysis along with the collaboration network, co-word analysis-based mapping of the conceptual structure using multidimensional scaling technique, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It was found that the research studies across the world increased gradually and various countries were pursuing collaborative research in this area. It was also found that WhatsApp, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and ResearchGate were the major social networking platforms being used in the higher education institutions of India. It was also witnessed that social media can be very instrumental in the virtual publicity and digital marketing of higher education institutions. Futuristic strategies to develop effective technology acceptance models and information technology-based infrastructures for efficient implementation of online pedagogy can be done in higher education institutions with the help of social networking platforms.