<p>Short-video communication is becoming a more common tool in universities to influence campus culture, but the choice of strategies and tools is not a straightforward one due to the variety of goals at particular institutions, limited resources, and the lack of reliability in expert advice. The paper proposes a circular intuitionistic fuzzy combined compromise solution to the ideal solution optimization (C-IF COCOFISO) method for ranking candidate short-video strategies based on a number of possibly conflicting criteria. Modelling the expert judgments as circular intuitionistic fuzzy constructions, which are combined and their aggregation is performed in a manner incorporating a combined compromise solution to ideal solution optimization (COCOFISO) procedure, led to consistently stable and easily interpretable priority scores. The criteria include the suitability of cultural relevance, effectiveness in communication, flexibility in technology, opportunities for student engagement, ethics, and sustainability. The framework consolidates fuzzy expressed fuzzy modelling and a clear-cut compromise-driven ranking pipeline, enabling decision-makers to handle waffling and trade-offs in one process. In particular, it combines C-IF data with COCOFISO to overcome competing goals and incomplete decisions, offers a step-by-step procedure that produces reproducible weights and rankings that are appropriate to institutional planning, and is tested on an actual university case, including sensitivity and cross-method comparisons. The findings show that C-IF COCOFISO provides a similar ranking and is more sensitive to cultural goals than the minimal requirements of decision-making processes, making it a flexible and convenient tool for drawing short-video communication plans in higher education.</p>