From Social Media Marketing to Student Enrollment Examining the Roles of Brand Awareness and Prior Digital Learning Experience Using PLS-SEM

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is widely used by higher education institutions to communicate with prospective students, yet its role in enrollment may vary across contexts. This study examines five SMM dimension Content Marketing, Social Media Engagement, Influencer Marketing, Advertising, and Platform Use in relation to Brand Awareness and Student Enrollment, while testing Prior Digital Learning Experience as a moderator. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4, with 384 observations included in the final model. The measurement model showed adequate reliability and convergent validity for Advertising, Brand Awareness, Prior Digital Learning Experience, Platform Used, Student Enrollment, and Social Media Engagement. Content Marketing failed composite reliability and convergent validity criteria, while Influencer Marketing showed an unstable rho_A estimate; these constructs were therefore interpreted cautiously. The structural model showed that none of the five SMM dimensions significantly predicted Brand Awareness (p > 0.05), Brand Awareness did not significantly predict Student Enrollment (β = -0.084, p = 0.164), all five indirect effects through Brand Awareness were non-significant, and the moderating effect of Prior Digital Learning Experience was also non-significant (β = 0.045, p = 0.411). The model explained 1.2% of the variance in Brand Awareness and 1.5% of the variance in Student Enrollment. The findings suggest that SMM, as operationalized in this model, explains only a limited portion of enrollment-related outcomes and that broader determinants and measurement refinement should be considered in future higher education recruitment research.