From 2011 on, ScienceGuide will offer you a new English
language service presenting you with news from stakeholders in
science and higher education from all over Europe. We select highly
qualitative live feeds from social media and bring them together
with thorough journalistic analyses.
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sharing? Get in touch with us via TopTien@scienceguide.nl
.
As a first preview, we now present you with the results of
the research we conducted among almost 2.000 universities from all
over Europe. How does your university score? How do the Netherlands
perform as a whole? What countries and institutions lead in
implementing social media? Who falls behind?
A Silent Revolution
Over the past few years, a silent revolution has taken place in
the ways universities communicate with their students and the
outside world. 336.890 people are currently following live feeds
from 390 university twitter channels. At the same time, Facebook
gained popularity with 1.475.255 members gathering in 598 official
university Facebook groups.
UK universities are by far
outperforming other countries in communicating via social media.
More than 60% of all university twitter followers are connected to
UK institutions. They also account for 42,4% of all Facebook
members. The University of Oxford dominates both Twitter and
Facebook and is growing at a great velocity of around 2.000 members
every month.
Despite some effort by Dutch
universities to catch up with this trend, none of
them manage to place in our Top 10. Taking the country as a whole,
the Netherlands only places 7th Europe-wide. An
outstanding phenomenon here is that Dutch universities experience
difficulties promoting their Facebook pages properly as they
account for only 1,2% of all Facebook university members. Twitter
by comparison seems more popular with a 'market-share' of 8,9%.
|
Rank
|
Institution
|
Twitter
|
Facebook
|
|
1
|
Oxford
University
|
11.500
|
125.000
|
|
2
|
University of
Cambridge
|
11.000
|
55.000
|
|
3
|
Open University Milton
Keynes
|
8.700
|
35.000
|
|
4
|
University of
London
|
18.000
(different faculties)
|
30.000
|
|
5
|
University of Southern
Denmark
|
70
|
37.000
|
|
6
|
Cardiff University
Wales
|
6.600
|
20.000
|
|
7
|
University of
Warwick
|
6.200
|
8.500
|
|
8
|
University of
Padua
|
950
|
14.000
|
|
9
|
University of
Turin
|
1.400
|
13.000
|
|
10
|
University of
Aberdeen
|
3.400
|
11.000
|
Note: numbers are in followers on Twitter and fans on
Facebook, respectively
Why Social Media?
Looking at the numbers is only one side of the story. Many
universities create Facebook pages and twitter channels, but in the
end they do not know what to do with them. Some are simply
copying news they publish on their regular homepage.
Others are using social media for 'Customer Services' updating
their students about library opening hours or exams and classes
that are cancelled due to the recent snow chaos. A third
approach is to increase the university's reputation by targeting
outsiders that might be interested in hearing about the latest
research breakthroughs made at the institution.
Right now, numbers show that more than 65% of the social media
channels in Europe focus on offering customer services to students.
Understanding Facebook, Twitter and the like as a means for
actively sharing knowledge and initiating discussions is very
rare.
Great Britain Dominates
Having a closer look at how universities from different
countries perform in communicating via Twitter and Facebook, it is
easy to see that Great Britain dominates the ranking.
|
Rank
|
Institution
|
Twitter
|
Facebook
|
|
1
|
Great Britain
|
201.885
|
625.020
|
|
2
|
France
|
24.130
|
130.050
|
|
3
|
Spain
|
15.980
|
97.525
|
|
4
|
Germany
|
31.500
|
68.930
|
|
5
|
Portugal
|
3.445
|
79.950
|
|
6
|
Italy
|
6.330
|
70.150
|
|
7
|
Netherlands
|
31.270
|
17.790
|
|
8
|
Poland
|
280
|
48.700
|
|
9
|
Denmark
|
60
|
40.700
|
|
10
|
Belgium
|
1.980
|
32.200
|
Note: numbers are in followers on Twitter and fans on
Facebook, respectively
Flop 3
Last but not least, let's have a look at those institutions that
are widely regarded as elite and prestigious in Europe. All of them
are ranked highest in quality of research, but our data showed how
some of them still have to find their way into the 21st
century.
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven:
Despite being member of renowned university clubs such as LERU and
Coimbra, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven has only an
old-fashioned website without any news services like RSS or
representations on Twitter or Facebook.
- ETH Zürich:
This university is well-known for its research of international
and global relevance. Communication-wise it only reaches German
speakers (115 twitter followers, 260 Facebook fans)
- Ludwig Maximilian Universität in
Munich:
Known for its excellence in research, this institution does not
communicate via Twitter or Facebook. Only German speakers can use a
RSS service.
Read the more extensive Dutch version of this analysis and
ranking here on ScienceGuide.