Here’s the November ranking for Swedish universities’ Facebook pages – based off the number of comments which their friends left on their walls, during the last month. This does not include comments left on posts by the page, or additional comments in a longer discussion. I’ve divided it into English and Swedish language pages.
Swedish language Facebook Pages
Overall, Linne Universitet’s wall saw the biggest increase in posting, with a growth of 20% since last month. There’s some international activity on the wall, which contributes to the growth, but the content seems to be mostly from students on campus; for example the sharing of blog posts or for sale notices. The Karolinska Institutet, The Royal College of Art and Stockholm’s Universitet’s walls remain closed for posts.
|
60 |
|
|
29 |
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|
27 |
|
|
22 |
|
|
22 |
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|
19 |
|
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17 |
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|
16 |
|
|
13 |
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|
13 |
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|
11 |
|
|
11 |
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|
11 |
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|
11 |
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Högskolan i Jönköping |
11 |
|
10 |
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|
6 |
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6 |
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3 |
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2 |
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|
1 |
English Language Facebook Pages
Malmö University sits at the top of this part of the ranking, with a page where posts are almost entirely questions about studying at Malmö, or how to make an application. Lund University, in second place, also has a wall dominated by questions about applying to Lund. Uppsala, whilst enjoying fewer posts, shows a similar trend towards questions about making an application. Stockholm University and the Stockholm School of Economics walls’ remain closed.
| Malmö University |
56 |
| Lund University |
48 |
| Uppsala University |
22 |
| Jönköping University |
14 |
| Umeå University |
13 |
| Chalmers University of technology |
6 |
| Karlstad University |
6 |
| Karlstad University |
6 |
| University of Borås |
2 |
Some Quick Reflections
A few things occurred to me when I was preparing this month’s ranking.
Number of friends versus number of posts
A high number of friends is obviously great for reach and getting your content visible across the web. Lund University, for example, gets a high number of likes and shares for some of their posts which presumably leads to a healthy amount of inbound traffic to their page, and website. But, once again there’s little relationship between number of friends and number of posts; Lund University has 5 times as many friends as Malmö University, yet they both have similar levels of posts.
Exceed expectations
The student’s question that you ignored or dismissed with a short, terse answer? There’s another university giving them red carpet treatment. In the last month I noticed, on several different occasions, the same student posting the same question on different university’s walls (yes, your customers are fickle – get over it). The tone and level of support tended to vary. Enough to make them not choose your university? Hard to say; but maybe enough to drop you from 1st to 2nd choice. Exceed the expectations of your Facebook friends, the extra effort does not cost much and will reap rewards.
Don’t be shy about your social ecosystem
Chances are, the page I include here isn’t your only one – you’ll have an ecosystem of different pages representing Faculties, programmes or research activities, for example. Quick tips – make sure your pages are liking each other; don’t rely on the Facebook search engine to show up your other pages. Also, encourage cross posting from one page to another; get administrators from a particular page to post, using their own page’s identity; when appropriate this is a powerful way of drawing attention to the competence and presence you have on Facebook.
University Usability 