Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/90487
■ How many Twitter followers does the school have? ■ How many YouTube chan- nel video views has the school generated? ■ Does the school have an entry on Wikipedia? ■ Does the school provide links from its Web sites to its social media feeds? For instance, we found that only 139 of the 371 schools in our sur- vey—or 37.5 percent—have articles about their institutions posted on Wikipedia. On the other hand, a majority of schools have fan pages on Facebook. But the most successful schools don't just establish accounts on major social media sites. They also integrate those accounts with each other and with their home Web sites. Given that, we were surprised by how many business schools did not make such integration a prior- ity. Business school Web sites have become hubs of information for business students, so it makes sense for schools to connect their Web sites to their social media feeds. But of the 371 business schools in our survey, nearly 36 percent—133 of them—did not provide links to their feeds on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn from their Web sites. Why is this a problem? Just con- sider the following statistics: ■ Business schools that have official Facebook pages and include links to those Facebook pages on their Web sites have an average of 1,654 fans. ■ Business schools that have official Facebook pages, but that don't link to those pages from their Web sites, have an average of only 439 fans. ■ Business schools with official Twitter handles and links on their Web sites to their handles have an average of 1,744 Twitter followers. ■ Business schools that have official Twitter handles but that don't link to those handles from their Web sites have an average of only 509 followers. Adding links to social media feeds is as easy as loading each social media service's plug-in to a Web site. Plug-ins can be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets on their Web site developer pages. Schools that haven't taken this step could be reducing the impact of their social media content by up to 70 percent. By the Numbers How well business schools conduct their social media strategies depends solely on how well they manage and deploy communications on each individual network. That's why we explored what individual schools are doing on each major social media site. Here's what we found: Facebook Facebook remains the most popular social media out- let for business schools. Currently, 64 percent of the AACSB busi- ness schools in our sample have established official business school Facebook fan pages and have, on average, 1,297 fans. At the time we took the sample, these schools also had an average of 31 individuals "talking about this." To get an idea of how those results compare to some of the top schools in the market, we consid- ered these numbers: Business schools that have both an official Facebook page and links to their Facebook page have 1,654 fans on average. 1,654 439 Business schools that have an official Facebook page but don't have a link to that page from their Web sites have 439 fans on average. ■ All of the top-25 business schools in U.S. News & World Report's 2012 rankings have Face- book fan pages. ■ Those top-25 business schools have an average of 6,194 Facebook fans each. ■ Schools that ranked from 26 to 50 have an average of 1,796 Facebook fans. ■ Harvard Business School has the most Facebook fans with 29,559. ■ Harvard also has the most indi- viduals "talking about this" at 672. Business schools that have both an official Twitter handle and a link to their Twitter presence from their Web sites have an average 1,744 Twitter followers 1,744 509 Business schools that have an official Twitter handle but don't have a link to that handle from their Web sites have an average of 509 followers. LinkedIn The second most popular social media platform for business schools, LinkedIn helps alumni locate career opportunities and maintain their networks. More than 48 percent of business schools have established official LinkedIn groups. That compares to 84 per- cent of top-50 business schools ranked by U.S. News & World Report. BizEd November/December 2012 35 ROMAN PONOMARETS/ISTOCK PHOTO Twitter Facebook