Institutional Use of Twitter by Russell Group Universities

Previous Surveys of Institutional Use of Twitter

Back in July 2009 Liz Azyan published a UK University Twitterleague which listed the number of followers for various official University Twitter accounts. In September 2009 Liz followed this with a List Of UK University Twitter Accounts.

In May 2010 Duncan Hull published a post entitled The University of Twitter, UK: A Quick Survey. which summarised Twitter usage by the 20 Russell Group Universities – these are universities which:

“represent the 20 leading UK universities which are committed to maintaining the very best research, an outstanding teaching and learning experience and unrivalled links with business and the public sector.”

As Duncan pointed out “they are exactly the kind of places you would expect to be embracing and experimenting with new technology“. In response to Duncan’s post Paul Dobson provided further analysis of Twitter usage by Russell Group Universities.

Finally I should mention a recent article on “Top 10 of Social Media in HE” published by the Science Guide blog which provides a summary of Twitter (and Facebook) usage across leading European Universities. This post points out that “Having a closer look at how universities from different countries perform in communicating via Twitter and Facebook, it is easy to see that Great Britain dominates the ranking” :-)

Institutional Use of Twitter by Russell Group Universities

Building on such previous work, a survey of institutional use of Twitter by Russell Group University Web sites was carried out on Monday 10^th January 2011. The survey recorded the number of followers, users followed and tweets published. In addition links to the Tweetstats service are given which provide additional statistical information on Twitter usage, together with a summary of the average number of tweets posts per month. A record was also made of the location and biographical details of the institutional accounts. This information is published in the following table.

Ref. No.	Institution	Nos. of Followers	Following	Tweets	Tweetstats
1	University of Birmingham: @unibirmingham Name: Birmingham Uni Location: Birmingham, UK Web: http://www.birmin… Bio: News and events from the University of Birmingham	4,681	222	1,011	Tweetstats for University of Birmingham:Average 40 tweets per month
2	University of Bristol: @bristoluniName: Bristol University Location: Bristol, England Web: http://www.bristo… Bio: News, events and general announcements from the University of Bristol	4,040	33	1,164	Tweetstats for University of Bristol:Average 91 tweets per month
3	University of Cambridge: @cambridge_uniName: Cambridge University Location: Cambridge, England Web: http://www.cam.ac… Bio: News and Events from the University of Cambridge	11,759	211	923	Tweetstats for University of Cambridge:Average 43 tweets per month
4	Cardiff University: @cardiffuni Name: Cardiff University Location: Cardiff, UK Web: http://www.cardif… Bio:	6,764	43	862	Tweetstats for Cardiff University:Average 25 tweets per month
5	University of Edinburgh: @uniofedinburgh Name: Edinburgh University Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom Web: http://www.ed.ac.uk/ Bio: Official news and events from The University of Edinburgh	4,092	177	666	Tweetstats for University of Edinburgh:Average 25 tweets per month
6	University of Glasgow: @glasgowuni Name: Glasgow University Location: Scotland Web: http://www.glasgo… Bio: Official news and events from the University of Glasgow	6,007	122	716	Tweetstats for University of Glasgow:Average 26 tweets per month
7	Imperial College: @imperialcollegeName: Imperial College Location: London Web: http://www3.imper… Bio: Imperial on Twitter – follow us for campus alerts and daily highlights. Send your tweet tipoffs to twitter@imperial.ac.uk, or talk direct via @imperialcollege	6,210	2,248	889	Tweetstats for Imperial CollegeAverage 42 tweets per month
8	King’s College London: @kingscollegelonName: King’s CollegeLondon Location: London UK Web: http://www.kcl.ac.uk Bio: News from King’s College London. King’s is a multi-faculty research-led institution and one of the world’s top 25 universities.	865	139	192	Tweetstats for King’s College London:Average 21 tweets per month
9	University of Leeds: @universityleeds Name: University of Leeds Location: Leeds, UK Web: http://www.leeds…. Bio:	3,161	188	573	Tweetstats for University of Leeds:Average 44 tweets per month
10	University of Liverpool: @liverpooluni: Obsolete Account	1,450	0	1
10	University of Liverpool: @livuni Name: Uni of Liverpool Location: Liverpool, UK Web: http://www.liv.ac.uk/study/ Bio: This is the official Twitter channel of the University of Liverpool. Any questions? Tweet us!	2,900	405	1,352	Tweetstats for University of Liverpool:Average 50 tweets per month;
11	LSE: No central single Twitter account found. However several official accounts exists e.g. @LSEpublicevents and @LSENews
12	University of Manchester: No central single Twitter account found
13	Newcastle University: No central single Twitter account found
14	University of Nottingham: @uniofnottinghamName: Nottingham Uni Location: Nottingham Web: http://www.nottin… Bio: A twitter channel for Nottingham University	3,179	1,850	1,662	Tweetstats for University of NottinghamAverage 74 tweets per month
15	University of Oxford: @uniofoxford Name: Oxford University Location: Web: http://www.ox.ac.uk Bio: Twitter stream of the University of Oxford	12,265	48	380	Tweetstats for University of OxfordAverage 74 tweets per month
16	Queen’s University Belfast: @queensubelfast Name: Queen’s University Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK Web: http://www.qub.ac.uk Bio: Queen’s has a record of academic achievement which stretches back more than 150 years. It offers a world class portfolio of research & educational opportunities	1,127	91	369	Tweetstats for Queen’s University BelfastAverage 23 tweets per month
17	University of Sheffield: @sheffielduni Name:Sheffield University Location:Sheffield, UK Web: http://www.sheffi… Bio: Founded in 1905, the University of Sheffield is one of the UK’s leading Russell Group universities with an outstanding record in both teaching and research.	5,869	5,089	744	Tweetstats for University of Sheffield:Average 30 tweets per month
18	University of Southampton: @southamptonnewsName: Uni of Southampton Location: University Road, Southampton Web: http://www.southa… Bio: The official twitter channel for the University of Southampton.	1,876	302	796	Tweetstats for University of Southampton:Average 30 tweets per month
19	University College London: @uclnewsName: UCL News Location: London Web: http://www.ucl.ac… Bio: News from UCL – London’s Global University	2,523	190	940	Tweetstats for University College London:Average 44 tweets per month
20	University of Warwick: @warwickuni Name: Warwick University Location: United Kingdom Web: http://www.warwic… Bio:	6,334	715	1,137	Tweetstats for University of Warwick:Average 40 tweets per month
	TOTAL	83,562	12,073	14,376

Note the @lsepublicevents (which is described as “Free public lectures and debates at LSE, with high profile speakers from government, politics, business, academia and civil society. http://www.lse.ac.uk/events” was not included in this list of institutional accounts as his seems to be a departmental Twitter account. However, for the record, this Twitter account had 10,542 f0llowers, was following 1,162 account and had posted 3,470 tweets.

Discussion

Institutional use of Twitter is relatively new, so best practices are not yet well established. Surveys of Twitter usage can help to identify patterns of usage from which in may be possible to observe emerging best practices.

Profile Information

The information on the Twitter profile can help to understand how institutions regard their use of Twitter.

• Institutions which make it clear that the Twitter account is an official channel or is providing official news : Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton.
• Institutions which define the scope of the Twitter account as covering news and/or events: Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, KCL and UCL.
• Institutions which provide marketing information in their Twitter profile: KCL, Queen’s University Belfast and Sheffield.

Location Information

A variety of location information was provided in the profiles:

• City and UK: Seven Eight instances: Birmingham, UK; Cardiff, UK; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Liverpool, UK; London UK; Leeds, UK; Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK; Sheffield, UK
• City and country: Two instances: Bristol, England; Cambridge, England
• Country only: Two instances: Scotland; United Kingdom
• City only: Four instances: London; Liverpool; Nottingham; London
• Road and city: One instance: University Road, Southampton
• No location: One instance: University of Oxford

Location information could potentially be used by automated harvesting tools or by location-sensitive applications. Note it was also noted that non of the Twitter accounts provided location information in a machine-readable format.

Links

The following institutions provided links to their institutional Web site from their Twitter profile:

• Links to home page: Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton and Warwick and Queen’s University Belfast, Imperial College and KCL
• Link to news page: UCL
• Link to Study page: Liverpool
• Link to about/help information: None

Note that links to an institutional Web site from a popular service such as Twitter may help in enhancing an institution’s Google ranking. [Note as described in a comment to this post, this is unlikely to happen due to use of the NOFOLLOW attribute.]

Also note that a link to a help page could provide information on how the Twitter account is being used.

Metrics

A summary showing the range of various Twitter metrics is given below:

• Numbers of Twitter followers: The numbers ranged from 865 -12,265.
• Numbers of Twitter users followed: The numbers ranged from 33-5,089.
• Numbers of tweets: The numbers ranged from 192-1,167.
• Average numbers of tweet per month: The numbers ranged from 23-91.
• Numbers of institutions not apparently using an official Twitter account: Three institutions to not seem to have an official Twitter account and one institution is not using what seem to be an official Twitter account.

Note that:

• The number Twitter followers may be some indication of value. However this number is likely to be influenced by the size of the institution:
• An institution may wish to develop a policy on following other Twitter users. There is no need to follow other Twitter users, especially if the Twitter account is used for one-way broadcasting of information. If Twitter accounts are followed this will allow direct messages (DMs) to be sent between the institution and the user. Also not that it is possible to configure a Twitter account so that new followers are automatically followed back.
• The number of tweets posted will be affected by the date the Twitter account was created. The average number of tweets posted per month may be a more useful way of comparing usage patterns across institutions.

Emerging Best Practices

The following suggestions are proposed for best practices for institutional Twitter accounts:

• An appropriate profile should be provided. This could be used, for example, to clarify the status of the Twitter account, the scope of usage and to promote the host institution.
• The location of the host institution should be provided, in text and as geo-located metadata, in order for tweets to be available to location-aware services.
• Twitter profiles should provide links back to appropriate pages on the institution’s Web site.

Note that it is probably also desirable to provide a policy on use of an institutional Twitter account. It may be desirable to link to the policy from the Twitter profile, so that users can easily discover the scope of the Twitter account, policies on following users and policies on responding to messages.

Also note that this post does not seek to address the question as to whether an institution should have an official Twitter account. That question, and related issues such as the purpose of the account, who should manage it and how it should be resourced, will be very dependent on institutional factors, including issues such as the relationship with other communication channels, possibly including Facebook.

Finally it should be added that it was observed that many of the institutional Twitter accounts had branded the Twitter home page, some with just a background image but others, such as Cardiff University, with additional textual information and link information (though this is not hyperlinked). However it should be noted that information provided on the Twitter background will not be available to those who use a dedicated Twitter client so there will be a need to provide relevant information in the Twitter bio field.

Your Feedback

I’d welcome feedback and comments on this survey and the accompanying suggestions. Is the data I’m provided correct? Are the suggested emerging best practices appropriate? Are there other suggestions which could be provided? I’m always welcome snapshots of Twitter statistics for other institutions (from the UK and beyond), although note that in order to provide meaningful comparisons, data should be provided for an official institutional Twitter account and not for departmental accounts.

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NOTE: Information on the official University of Liverpool Twitter account has been received (which could not be found easily on Google). The table and summary information have been updated. Also note that the totals in the table were collated after the post was initially published.

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Twitter conversation from Topsy: [View]