Higher Education Social Media Effectiveness Ranking
The Social Scene
For our recent #PSEWEB blog article we identfied and analysed the official social media accounts Canada’s universities and colleges use, along with their publicly-available content and audience data. Content data measures posts, pins and video uploads: marketing output. Audience data measures likes and followers: the response to marketing output.
Our article sets out the social media network landscape and examines aggregate usage and uptake statistics. While researching the article we speculated that a ranking or league table might highlight otherwise unnoticed over- and under-achieving post-secondary institutions.
The following describes our ‘first cut’ at a higher education social media effectiveness ranking index covering Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (the FITLY) accounts.
The Arithmetic
We divided each institution’s Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn “follower” count and Facebook “like” count by the corresponding value for the number of alumni recorded on LinkedIn (LinkedIn users’ post-secondary institution affiliations are automatically registered on completing a profile).
For the purposes of this index, the total LinkedIn alumni count could be regarded as an addressable market size proxy. By adjusting the raw follower/like counts by each institution’s addressable market size estimate, institutional size disparities are potentially normalized.
We excluded institutions without LinkedIn accounts (three) and institutions with fewer than 500 LinkedIn flagged alumni (five) from our calculations. No LinkedIn alumni data means effectively dividing by zero, which we consider an error. And, by inspection, we noted that institutions with fewer than 500 alumni were (a) low volume social media users and (b) generated follower to alumni ratios that were outliers.
We ranked the resulting ratios (followers/alumni) for each social media network into deciles.
YouTube subscriber numbers are small, meaning inferences based on this data are likely ambiguous. However, the data for the number of YouTube video views intuitively seems a stronger measure of the ‘popularity’ of uploaded video content. So, we used this for assessing YouTube. Again, we ranked the overall set of YouTube views data into deciles – matching the treatment for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
We combined the five individual decile rankings to produce an overall ranking covering 135 of the original 173 higher education institutions examined. Twelve institutions ‘eliminated’ themselves, as they did not have full sets of FITLY accounts.
Initial Results
A second #PSEWEB article will examine the main five social networks used in Canadian higher education.
Here are our first-pass results, based on the methodology described above:
First Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Brescia University College
- Briercrest College & Seminary
- Canadian Mennonite University
- College of the Rockies
- Emily Carr University of Art + Design
- Holland College
- OCAD University
- Olds College
- Quest University Canada
- Redeemer University College
- Saskatchewan Polytechnic
- University Canada West
- University of Northern British Columbia
- University of Prince Edward Island
Second Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Alberta University of the Arts
- Algoma University
- Cape Breton University
- College of the North Atlantic (CNA)
- École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP)
- First Nations University of Canada
- Grande Prairie Regional College
- Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS)
- Justice Institute of British Columbia
- King’s University College at Western University
- McGill University
- St. Thomas University
- The King’s University
- Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
- Yorkville University
- Yukon College
Third Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Adler University
- Brandon University
- Campion College
- Keyano College
- Royal Roads University
- Saint Paul University
- Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
- University of British Columbia
- University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT)
- University of Toronto
- Vancouver Island University
- Western University
Fourth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Brock University
- Concordia University of Edmonton
- Huron University College
- La Cité collégiale
- Lethbridge College
- MacEwan University
- McMaster University
- Memorial University of Newfoundland
- North Island College
- NSCAD University
- St. Francis Xavier University
- Trent University
- Trinity Western University
- Université du Québec
- University of King’s College
- University of Waterloo
Fifth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
Sixth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Acadia University
- Bishop’s University
- Douglas College
- Georgian College
- Lakehead University
- Lambton College
- Langara College
- University of Sudbury
- Medicine Hat College
- New Brunswick Community College
- Simon Fraser University
- Thompson Rivers University
- Université de Montréal
- Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
- University of Lethbridge
- Victoria University
Seventh Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
Eighth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- Algonquin College
- Canadore College
- Carleton University
- College of New Caledonia
- Dalhousie University
- École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal (HEC Montréal)
- George Brown College
- Humber College
- Kwantlen Polytechnic University
- Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)
- Université de Sherbrooke
- University of Calgary
- University of New Brunswick
- University of Windsor
- York University
Ninth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
Tenth Decile Ranking - Alphabetical Order
- British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
- Camosun College
- Capilano University
- Conestoga College
- Mount Royal University
- Red River College
- Saint Mary’s University
- Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)
- Seneca College
- Université Laval
- University of Ottawa
- University of St. Michael’s College
- University of the Fraser Valley
Consider the eQAfy higher education social media effectiveness ranking™ a work-in-progress.