Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/90487
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. Of all social media outlets, LinkedIn is perhaps the one that business schools actively man- age the least. Business schools typically spend much more time developing their presences on YouTube, Facebook, and Twit- ter. That makes sense, given that business students and alumni are really using LinkedIn, not to support their lives at school, but to develop and digitize the professional networks they developed during their business school programs. Twitter One of the most rapidly growing social media outlets, Twitter is unique in that business schools can tweet messages several times per day without breaking the social outlet's norms. If they made the same number of Facebook posts per day, many followers might consider it too much information and unsubscribe. As a result, more schools are using Twitter as a cen- tral tool for communicating with students regarding daily events and announcements. Because of Twitter's easy access and quick response time, it also has become more common for students and potential students to address business-related questions to a business school's Twitter handle, instead of using traditional outlets such as e-mail and phone. Here's what we found: ■ 42 percent of business schools in our sample have a Twitter handle. ■ 100 percent of top-25 business schools have a Twitter handle. ■ A number of business school 36 November/December 2012 BizEd 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. deans are on Twitter, including Judy Olian of UCLA Anderson, Garth Saloner of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Rich Lyons of the Haas School of Business at UC- Berkeley, Nitin Nohria of Harvard Business School, James Dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, David Thomas of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and Robert Bruner of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. ■ As of April, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsyl- vania had the most Twitter followers of any business school with 22,641. Harvard Business School came in second with 17,503, and MIT Sloan came in a close third at 16,022. YouTube YouTube is now the second most popular search engine in the world behind Google, according to a July 2011 article in Search Engine Journal. Many current and future business school students use YouTube as a resource in their learning activities. Business schools have established channels where lectures, school video ads, and video interviews are uploaded. As useful and informational as YouTube videos can be, only 31 percent of business schools have a YouTube chan- nel, compared to 96 percent of top-25 business schools. However, we found that when a school makes a com- mitment to online video, it can reap big rewards in increased visibility: ■ Videos on the YouTube chan- nel for Stanford University's Grad- uate School of Business had a total of 2,341,127 views at the time we took our sample. ■ Many of Stanford's most pop- ular YouTube videos are presenta- tions given by its guest lecturers, who range from Pixar president Ed Catmull to rapper-turned- entrepreneur MC Hammer. Some of its videos have received well over 100,000 views. ■ The average business school channel has 57,145 video views, with a median view total of 5,252. Google Places Google Places is a free service that invites orga- nizations to cre- ate customized profiles that include their locations, information about their offerings, photos, and other details. Google Twitter ROMAN PONOMARETS/ISTOCK PHOTO