The education sector in Zambia has experienced higher increase in both private and public institutions. The implication of this is that markets are shrinking causing price discovery. The increased competition and shrinking of markets cause Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), to innovate ways of maintaining or increasing their competitive advantage. The 4th Industrial revolution propounded by Klaus Schwab in 2016 predicted a shift from traditional and physical marketing strategies to technology based competitive business wars. Social media has become one of the most influential marketing tools in the 21st century with highly developed interactive platforms helping institutions to expand markets and increase revenue. The challenges that have most HEIs have faced is that they have had no means to measure investment in social media marketing and have had no well-developed model for marketing their institutions on social media. This article is based on the findings from the author’s Doctorial report based on empirical evidence from selected HEIs where data was collected to build a robust model for marketing HEIs on social media. The research found that there was a mismatch between social media platforms that HEIs were using and those popular with enrolled students. This research is a mixed research based on a post-positivism philosophy with both inductive and deductive approaches. The article is based on findings from 321 responses that were part the targeted 395 samples according to Yamane’s sample calculations. The article discusses two models developed by the author as part of their doctoral dissertation at ZCAS University. Literature sources have been drawn from various journal papers and reports specifically from the Higher Education Authority. The findings show that HEIs should adopt the models developed and proposed by this author if they are to succeed in their social media marketing campaigns.

Keywords : Education, Social media, Marketing, Platforms, Model, Facebook.