Pathology of the Ethical Approach in Social Media Marketing Activities in the University (Case of Study: Islamic Azad University)

Social media as an emerging phenomenon in Iran has caused significant changes in all activities, especially in the field of educational services. According to their mission, universities and higher education centers always seek to attract students and then attract motivation for specific actions and behaviors. The lack of native standard models for using social media marketing in the university has caused us to sometimes see problems in this field. Based on this, this research, after investigating the ethical problems of this activity, first through the method of qualitative approach and inductive content analysis, while conducting scientometrics, identifies the dimensions of social media marketing and localizes them using the Delphi method. Then, with the help of exploratory factor analysis, while verifying the groups of indicators of each dimension and verifying validity, it evaluates the current and desirable situation of these indicators and factors in Iranian universities. The statistical population of this research in the qualitative section of the articles of the Web of Science database during the 50 years ending in 2022 and in the qualitative section is selected experts and cultural assistants of universities across the country that were surveyed using the snowball method. The results show that the most important problems are related to the ethical approach in advertising and social media marketing policy.