The document discusses the results of a survey on the use of social media by Swiss higher education institutions. It finds that while most institutions are using social media, many are just trying it out rather than aggressively adopting strategies. Key findings include: Facebook and Twitter are the most widely used and important tools; lack of resources is the biggest challenge; and the future focus may be on Google+ and podcasts.
Swan(sea) Song – personal research during my six years at Swansea ... and bey...
Swiss Higher Ed Social Media
1. Use of Social
Media by Swiss
Higher Ed
2nd Annual Meeting
May 16, 2012
Initiative of the State Secretariat for Education and Research SER Annex of the Consulate General.
Swiss Knowledge Network with outposts in Boston . San Francisco . Shanghai and Singapore
2. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
2
3. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
3
4. #higheredCH
Where is Swiss Academia Today?
Social media is a priority for 42% of the institutions
72% say that they are using the tools, but are just trying them out vs.
aggressively testing or utilizing social media on a regular basis
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
4
5. #higheredCH
Social Media Managers on the Rise
27% have a social media manager, 42% plan to hire one in 2012
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
5
6. #higheredCH
Strategy And Policy Are (Almost) in Place
42% have a social media strategy, 37% have policies and guidelines in
place
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
6
7. #higheredCH
How is Swiss Academia Using Social Media?
Foremost, social media supports distribution of content, news, research
results, and events
Social media also allows institutions to hear what is going on and engage
with relevant audiences
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
7
8. #higheredCH
Social Media Supports Many Goals
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
8
9. #higheredCH
What Are The Biggest Challenges?
Greatest barrier is the lack of resources
Lack of knowledge and awareness is also still a big factor
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex in December 2011
9
10. #higheredCH
Which Social Media Are Used The Most?
Most important tools are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex San Francisco in December 2011
10
11. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
11
12. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
12
13. #higheredCH
Facebook | Overview
Most universities and universities of applied sciences have an official page
on Facebook
EHL and EPFL are the frontrunners
13
14. 14
2007
Aug 25
2009
2010
2009
Mar 18 Mar 11
Apr 15
Jun 8
Jun 17
Jun 30
Aug 12
Sept 17
Sept 21
Date equals the day of the first post on Facebook
Nov 18 Nov 17
Jan 20
Feb 15
2011
Feb 28
Mar 4
Mar 30
May 4 May 5
May 18
May 29
Sept 12
Nov 17
Dec 19
Dec 22
Timeline: When Did Swiss Higher Ed join Facebook?
2012
#higheredCH
15. #higheredCH
Facebook | Mentions for Universities
EPFL and ETH get the most mentions on Facebook
Posts on Facebook that include institution’s name in March and April 2012 (e.g. search terms for
UNIBAS: Universität Basel, Unibas (and Basel), Université de Bâle, University of Basel)
Source: Radian6
15
16. #higheredCH
Facebook | Mentions for Universities of Applied
Sciences
EHL has most mentions
Posts on Facebook that include institution’s name in March and April 2012 (e.g. search terms for
UNIBAS: Universität Basel, Unibas (and Basel), Université de Bâle, University of Basel)
Source: Radian6
16
17. #higheredCH
Facebook | Checkins at Universities
Steep increase in checkins
17
18. #higheredCH
Facebook | Checkins at Universities of Applied Sciences
Checkins also on the rise at universities of applied sciences
18
19. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
19
20. #higheredCH
Twitter | Overview
Every Swiss university has at least one Twitter account
Most of the participating Swiss universities of applied sciences have a
Twitter account (10 out of 14)
Most followed are EPFL, ETHZ, and EHL
20
21. 21
Jun 19
2007
2009
Mar 03
2009
May 7
Aug 13
Jan 19
2010
Mar 23
May 18
May 21
Jun 23
Nov 23 Nov 19
Nov 30
Dec 23 Dec 31
Jan 28
2011
Apr 12
May 18 May 24
Jun 6
Aug 8
Dec 12
Dec 19
Dec 22
Timeline: When Did Swiss Higher Ed Start Tweeting?
Feb 10
2012
#higheredCH
22. #higheredCH
Twitter | Activity
HSLU is the most active institution on Twitter in Q1 2012
22
23. #higheredCH
Twitter | Reach
Federal institutes had the highest reach in March & April 2012
Reach = number of Twitter users who see tweets, retweets, and mentions
Source: Radian6
23
24. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
24
25. #higheredCH
iTunes U | Overview
UNIL, FHNW, FFHS are present on iTunes U with a customized channel and
numerous podcasts
FHNW joined early 2011
25
26. #higheredCH
Use of Social Media by Swiss Higher Ed
• SURVEY RESULTS
Where is Swiss academia today?
How are they using social media?
Goals? Challenges? Tools?
RESEARCH RESULTS
Facebook
Twitter
iTunes U
OUTLOOK
26
27. #higheredCH
Where is Swiss Academia Headed in the Future?
Focus in the future will be on Google+ and podcasts
Source: Survey conducted by swissnex in December 2011
27
I will give you a short overview of how Swiss higher ed is using social media. We will look at the results from a survey we conducted in December of last year (we sent a questionnaire to communication offices of all Swiss Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences), so that will be the first part of this presentation The second part will be insight into our quarterly research about social media presence and will focus on 3 specific tools Please note that I will refer a lot to “higher ed”, “Swiss academia”, or “institutions” which really means those 2 groups (and only those participating in the program)
Social Media is a priority for 42% of the institutions, similar survey in 2010 showed that 21% think social media is a priority If most institutions don‘t see themselves necessarily as experts, and many of them see social media as a priority, shouldn‘t they hire an expert?
27% actually already have a social media manager, 42% plan to hire one in 2012 ??ASK AUDIENCE??: who of you are actually considered a “social media manager” at your institution?
42% have a social media strategy, 37% have policies and guidelines in place and a large group of respondents seem to actually work on it right now
We think it is really great that institutions are listening to what is going on. Distributing content is really the basic function of social media, but engaging with communities/target groups is really what social media is all about. We expect that to change a lot in the upcoming months as we see more and more social media managers, which means people who dedicate a lot of time on social media. We have heard from multiple sources, that Twitter is hitting it off in Switzerland, which means that the audience is growing and interaction on tools like that become more likely
This gives you a snapshot of what respondents thought was important at the time of our survey. READ OUT ONE OR TWO As institutions become more used to using social media and the tools get more features, social media might help reach other goals in the future. Who knows. Maybe all of the sudden it moves more into HR and helps hiring new employees. Interesting to re-assess in a year or so.
Lack of resources is greatest barrier. These barriers have not changed much from our survey back in 2010. ??DO YOU FEEL THIS IS ACCURATE? DO YOU HAVE FEEL LIKE OTHER BARRIERS ARE BIGGER AT YOUR INSTITUTION?
So called “biggest four” are also big amongst Swiss higher ed: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube But blogs also play a big role it seems. Really interesting since having a blog means that you are creating content. It takes creativity, organization , and time. ??WHO OF YOU HAS A BLOG??
Let’s look into tools and shift from survey results to our quarterly research. We comb through all major social media tool and report on a number of metrics. We also created some charts from Radian6 insight.
Let’s look at official pages and the number of likes since the Q1 2011. Everyone seems to be on Facebook at this point. We are getting to a level of maturity in terms of presence. This does not reflect activity. None of these numbers are adjusted to the size of the schools. ??QUESTION TO AUDIENCE: WHO DO YOU THINK WAS THE FIRST SCHOOL TO HAVE A FB PAGE??
Most institutions joined in the last 2 years. Surprising that EHL who only joined in early 2011 has so many followers. So number of likes clearly has nothing to with the time they joined.
We talked about presence, but let’s look how many mentions institutions get in two particular months on Facebook (we looked at March & April 2012). EPFL and ETH get the most mentions. ETH does not have an official page, but clearly gets a lot of buzz on that medium. This only includes public profiles, so there is a lot more potentially.
Not a whole lot of mentions here, but EHL is again top of the list (also most likes)
We looked at checkins for the last 2 quarters, because these are bottom-up movements. Meaning that these checkins come from pages that were created by the community (maybe your students), but also includes your official page (if available). Mobile is getting bigger and bigger and these are people who are obviously eager to tell everyone that they are at your institution. Let’s look at UZH, who had nearly 3000 checkins in the first 3 months of 2012.
Same graph for universities of applied sciences where we have the usual suspect taking the lead.
Twitter is 2nd most used tool. Very similar picture than for Facebook, except that ETH is a big player on Twitter in the social media landscape for higher ed in CH Some have 2 accounts ?? QUESTION FOR AUDIENCE: WHO DO YOU THINK WAS SENT THE FIRST TWEET??
Almost same picture as with Facebook, but institution started earlier on Twitter. Why? Maybe easier to set up an account? Less hassle to manage? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
University of applied sciences Lucerne is most active. This does not show the whole picture of course. It would be interesting to see/analyze content of tweets, we will try to focus on that in the future as well as many are tweeting now.
This is an important number because it shows a potential number of people they reach. EPFL and ETH have a lot of followers, but their followers probably also have a high number of followers. So that is important, but don‘t forget that the content has to be appealing too. Retweets are depending on the content. Usually because you retweet what could be interesting to your follower base in your opinion.
Before we come to this last slide, I want to give you little bit of background about why we show you iTunes U. Maybe you have heard about MOOC = Massive online open courses (check latest blog post). Companies like Udacity offer online classes and give out the names of their best performing students to the hiring managers of big companies. Potential threat to exisiting university model Since offering courses online is a very hot topic right now and iTunes U is one of the platforms that enables that, we will show you who has a channel.
To date, these are the 3 institutions with a channel. We expect many more to set up iTunes U or similar.
With that I close that and give you a very short outlook on what tools are in the spotlight next
In December, this was the answer we got. But new social media tools are popping up daily, and who knows what the next thing will be. This might already be out of date today.
Our reports in the future: We will shift from presence focus to activity focus as most higher ed institutions are now on social media, but the interesting aspect will be how they are using it, how much, and what to they say? We will also offer daily Radian6 reports for those interested. We’ll send you an email. And of course, you will get the chance to hear more about monitoring from Mike Schwede later today. But first: panel discussion with unique insights from 3 institutions on how they use social media.