Social Media Survey

For the third consecutive year, CASE has partnered with Slover Linett Strategies Inc. and mStoner to survey educational institutions about their social media activities. The overarching goal of the research is to create knowledge and resources for education professionals as they assess and implement social media strategies for communication and engagement.

Earlier this year, the partners conducted an online survey among a random sample of about 18,000 CASE members in the United States and abroad. Nearly 1,200 institutions (1,187) from across all types of institutions responded to the survey—the highest response of all three years and a testament to the interest in this topic.

Read an August 2012 white paper analyzing three years of data from the surveys.

A comparison of 2011 and 2012 survey results reveals that some stats remained the same. These include:

• Facebook is still the dominant channel.
• Most (82 percent) departments handle their own social media but have input from others.
• Top goals are still focused on engaging alumni and enhancing brand image.
• Just one-quarter of respondents say they are “very successful” in their social media efforts.

2012 survey results also indicate the following changes from 2011 results:

• Twitter is up, both in effectiveness and usage.
• LinkedIn and YouTube grew in importance although not as much as Twitter.
• Fewer institutions are using vendors’ community solutions.
• Acceptance of social media as an effective communications tool is slowly but steadily growing.

Here are links to top-line findings and the presentation of those findings during the CASE Social Media and Community Conference (April 18-20, 2012, Chicago, Ill.).