UK social media in two top 10 rankings

The University of Kentucky recently achieved two top 10 rankings in social media. The university is seventh on the Top 100 Social Media Colleges list created by StudentAdvisor.com. In addition, UK was ranked fifth in social media use in a list of U.S. colleges ranked by Track Social in April.
 

On a daily basis, StudentAdvisor.com tracks thousands of colleges and universities on more than 100,000 data points in a statically valid study to determine their respective social media uses. Data tracked include total Facebook fan counts, total number and effectiveness of Twitter followers, taking into account adjustments of school enrollment, among other factors including other social media engagement at each school.
 

“Social media has revolutionized university engagement,” said Dean Tsouvalas, editor-in-chief of StudentAdvisor.com. “In addition, the use of image sharing social networks, like Pinterest and Instagram, has exploded in popularity. The schools on our list do an incredible job of harnessing the power of social media to keep their own communities informed and show the world what they are all about.”
 

The other colleges listed in StudentAdvisor.com’s top 10 are Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, Columbia University, Stanford University, Ohio State University, Louisiana State University, University of Washington – Seattle and the United States Military Academy.
 

UK’s social media efforts earned the university a top five ranking in a list of 115 universities across the United States evaluated by Track Social, a California firm that analyzes social media accounts based on “presence, audience, engagement and buzz.”
 

The rest of the top 10 universities on the Track Social blog’s list are Kansas University, Baylor University, Yale University, Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, Texas A&M University, University of Florida and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 

Track Social noted how actively Big Blue Nation tracked the activities of the UK men’s basketball team via social media through March Madness, but it also recognized UK for its overall community spirit saying “Kentucky also gets social media mileage by incorporating creative posts from the Wildcat community. Posts like this reflect the kind of engagement you can’t manufacture. That’s the kind of old- fashioned pride that that gets built ‘offline’ and can’t help but find expression online.”
 

“UK believes the field of social media is a great way to communicate and build relationships with the university’s varied audiences not only on campus, but around the world,” said Jay Blanton, executive director of UK Public Relations and Marketing. “We enjoy engaging and interacting with our students, faculty, staff, alumni and fans through these online applications and hope to make more connections with them in the future.”
 

To connect with UK online, visit the following social media outlets:
on Facebook at facebook.com/universityofky;
on Twitter at twitter.com/universityofky;
on YouTube at youtube.com/universityofky; and
on Flickr at flickr.com/universityofkentucky.
 

Additionally, a UK presence can now be found on Pinterest, Google+ and Foursquare. These accounts will officially launch in the fall.