The study employed a quantitative method to investigate the association between social media adoption, integrated marketing communication, and employee-based brand equity for 34 private universities in Jakarta, Indonesia. The study used a purposive sampling technique to select 67 essential staff members to participate in a questionnaire. Partial Least Square was utilized to assess the hypothesized associations between the constructs in the study using the structural model and the measurement model. Results of the output generated by PLS-SEM exhibit the significance of the Importance–Performance Matrix. The analysis indicates a substantial positive relationship between social media adoption, integrated marketing communication, and employee-based brand equity. The researchers found that the two endogenous latent variables of social media adoption and integrated marketing communication explained 41.1% of the variance in employee-based brand equity, with exogenous factors explaining the remaining 58.9%. The study's implications suggest that integrated marketing communication is critical in building brand equity for private universities in Jakarta, Indonesia. The findings could provide a valuable guide for formulating marketing communication strategies that prioritize social media adoption and integrated marketing communication techniques to improve employee-based brand equity. Overall, the study's findings provide important insights into the association between social media adoption, integrated marketing communication, and employee-based brand equity for private universities in Jakarta, Indonesia, and could have implications for other regional private educational institutions.