LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University has been named one of the “Top 100 Social Media Colleges” in the country, a list that includes more than 6,000 colleges and universities.
To determine its rankings, StudentAdvisor.com looked at schools in terms of how active and effective they are at engaging their audiences on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes and other social media tools. One of the criteria the site uses in its rankings is enrollment, and it judges the effectiveness based on how many people it is reaching. Transylvania’s enrollment is 1,110, and it has over 3,600 fans on its main Facebook page and over 1,100 followers on its main Twitter account.
The Office of Communications manages the main university social media accounts listed in the ranking (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).
“We are very excited to be considered among the social media elite like Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame and Princeton,” said Sarah Emmons, associate vice president for communications and public relations. “Social media is a powerful way to connect and interact with our constituents and the outside world. Facebook and Twitter, especially, have become important communications platforms for us.”
Also included in the “Top 100” ranking is an institution’s score from TwitterGrader.com, which grades the power and reach of any Twitter account based on a number of factors. Transylvania’s Twitter account scores a 96.8 on a 100-point scale and ranks in the top 3.3 percent of over nine million accounts.
“Transy has tactfully mastered the art of the retweet by sharing stories about student life, academics and athletics under the school’s main Twitter account,” the report said.
Transylvania encourages all its constituents—students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, trustees, friends and anyone interested in the university—to join its social networks.