Clide Rodríguez-Vázquez

The Importance of Social Capital in Higher Education. A Study of the Facebook Fan Pages

The objective of this paper is to analyze the importance of social media in improving knowledge exchange, which may be reflected in improving the quality of higher education institutions. For this purpose, we study the relevance of three Spanish universities in Facebook. Although the importance of Facebook has been demonstrated in education, very few researches provide concrete evidence on its use as a mean of communication. Findings reveal that Facebook has an important role in terms of Social Capital by identifying communication strategies in order to achieve a higher efficiency, brand image and reputation.

Competing Tourist Destinations and Their Positioning on the Social Medium Facebook: Ecuador, Colombia and Peru

Today’s tourist industry is characterised by its increasingly profitable and competitive nature, forcing destinations to seek forms of differentiation in order to attract greater numbers of tourists. However, this is challenging task, and tourism promoters and managers are required to plan and design effective marketing strategies tailored to communicate and highlight the tourist attractions of their destinations. In this sense, adapting to the new scenario created by social media has revolutionized communication. Destinations are now required to make full use of the advantages these communication tools offer. The aim of this research is to analyse the tourist positioning of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru on the social medium Facebook. The conclusions indicate that the countries analysed should improve their optimisation strategies in order to take full advantage of the interactive potential Facebook offers, thereby optimising their future position as tourist destinations.

Evaluation of the Fanpages of Spanish universities: public versus private institutions

Although the importance of Facebook in education has been proved repeatedly, it has been verified that few research works expose the usefulness of this social network as a means of communication. Likewise, it has been observed that the institutions that manage it in many cases do not know or do not master the instruments for making said communication efficient. By virtue of this context, the aim of this work is to learn how the Spanish universities use their Fanpages through the analysis of their content, visibility and interactivity. We shall also observe whether there are significant differences between public and private universities with regard to said items. For this purpose, we studied the importance of the main Spanish universities according to the Ranking Web of Spanish Universities—Webometrics—(three public and three private universities) in Facebook. The results reveal a professionalization in the use of these tools by the public universities. They create new opportunities, while the private universities fail to achieve this level.

Higher Education and Facebook: Faculties Versus Academic Libraries. A Case Study

Although the importance of Facebook has been demonstrated in education, very little research provides concrete evidence on its use as a means of communication. This research is one of the very few, if any, to go into faculties and their libraries and try to analyze the use of Facebook and to determine which faculties or libraries are putting the opportunities offered by Facebook to optimum use in order to communicate with their audiences for promotional purposes. The findings indicate that Facebook plays an important role in communication between universities libraries and their audience in order to achieve greater efficiency, brand image and reputation, but in the case of the three faculties analyzed our study revealed significant shortcomings in comparison to their libraries. The results reveal a professionalization of the use of Facebook tools by libraries universities, creating new opportunities, while faculties fail to achieve this level.

Galician Spas in Facebook

In Spain, Galicia is considered one of the best-rated regions in reference to Thermal Tourism. This is because of its medicinal and mineral waters and the quality of its thermal places. In this regard, the ICT have contributed positively to improve the online presence of spas. The research tries to bring together two elements: four Galician spas—one for each region—, and social media—Facebook—, in order to determine how those could improve their online visibility. LikeAlyzer is the online tool used to make the present analysis, since it allows assessing a series of interesting values. Also, it can analyse the effectiveness of websites, detect problems, and provide solutions for covering gaps.

Social Networks and their Role in the Promotion of Emerging Tourist Destinations: The Case of the Area 7 of Ecuador

Digital social media have an essential role in the promotion of tourist destinations representing image and reputation where the visitant assumes an active role, as a prescriber. Destinations must be included in the social media as part of the strategy by well defining their communication strategies mostly for reaching efficiency. The management of promotion, through communication, is relevant for emerging destinations with a weak positioning but with a great potential, as it is the case of the destinations in the South of Ecuador. The tourism development is a priority for the Ecuadorian Government for economic and social policies, gathered within the PLANDETUR2020 and the National Plan for Good Living. This research project analyses the potential of tourist destinations from several towns located in the South Region (Part of the Region 7) of the country: Loja, Vilcabamba, Malacatos, Saraguro and Catamayo, as well as the Natural Park Podocarpus as a dynamic element. Official Facebook accounts were studied to define the projection of their identity in order to create a brand of image—place and the user interaction with the digital social media.

National parks of Ecuador and its promotion through Social Networks

The government of Ecuador there has managed a model of development that it values to all his cultures, his idiosyncrasy and his natural environments, beside managing, across the National System of Protected Areas (SNAP), to implement actions in benefit of the conservation of the natural resources since it has happened in the National Parks. Likewise, other relevant progresses that have to be considered in all this studding, it is the development of the Social Networks, as contribution to the promotion of the knowledge of the National Parks, by means of his labor in the communication of the above mentioned resources. The aim principal of this investigation is based in analyzing the promotion in Facebook of four National Parks of Ecuador. The purpose is to determine if really they take advantage of the above mentioned channel as generator of contents, visibility and interactivity and manage therefore, to make profitable the opportunities that nowadays offer the technologies.

La educación superior en españa y las redes sociales: Instituciones públicas versus privadas

The aim of this paper is to analyze the social capital importance in higher education institutions, public and private. For this purpose, we studied the importance of the main Spanish universities, according to the Ranking Web of Spanish Universities-Webometrics-(3 public and 3 private) in Facebook. Although the importance of Facebook in education has been demonstrated, there is little research using it as a media. The results reveal a professionalization of the use of these tools by public universities, creating new opportunities, while private universities fail to achieve this level.

Social media communication and the way of santiago

Today social media has revolutionized how to do communication, organizations and tourism destinations should be aware about that and they try to manage as best as possible their presence in social networks to make profitable the benefits that it can report them. In this sense, we have tried to combine two elements, firstly the Camino de Santiago, a tourism product in Galicia (Spain), and secondly, social media, specifically Facebook, in order to determine the use made of this tool by two organization closely linked to the pilgrimage route in order to promote a tourist product so important to Galicia.