Facebook Usage for Russell Group Universities, July 2014

Facebook Usage for Russell Group Universities

In order to gather evidence of use of Facebook in the higher education sector periodic surveys of usage of official institutional Facebook pages have been carried out for the Russell Group universities since January 2011. The last survey was carried out 0n 31 July 2012, the day before the number of Russell Group universities grew from 20 to 24.

The aim of the surveys is to provide factual evidence which can be used to inform policy decisions on institutional use of social media and corresponding operational practices and stimulate debate.

The latest survey has just been carried out. It is intended that the survey will help inform discussions at the IWMW 2014 event, which starts on Wednesday.

Note that the data provided in the following table is also available as a Google Spreadsheet.

Ref. No.	Institution and Web site link Facebook name and link	Nos. of Likes (Jan 2011)	Nos. of Likes (Sep 2011)	Nos. of Likes (May 2012)	Nos. of Likes (Jul 2012)	Nos. of Likes (Jul 2014)	% increase since Aug 2012
1	Institution: University of Birmingham Fb name: unibirmingham	8,558	14,182	18,611	20,756	88,694	327%
2	Institution: University of Bristol Fb name: University-of-Bristol/108242009204639	2,186	7,913	11,480	12,357	27,071	219%
3	Institution: University of Cambridge Fb name: cambridge.university	58,392	105,645	153,000	168,000	787,347	369%
4	Institution: Cardiff University Fb name: cardiffuni	20,035	25,945	30,648	31,989	51,108	60%
5	Institution: Durham University Fb name: Durham-University/109600695725424	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	10,843	31,153	187%
6	Institution: University of Exeter Fb name: exeteruni	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	15,387	29,054	89%
7	Institution: University of Edinburgh Fb name: UniversityOfEdinburgh (Page URL changed since first survey)	–	12,053	24,507	27,574	70,667	156%
8	Institution: University of Glasgow Fb Name: glasgowuniversity	–	1,860	27,149	29,840	68,667	130%
9	Institution: Imperial College Fb name: imperialcollegelondon	5,490	10,257	16,444	19,020	68,347	259%
10	Institution: King’s College London Fb name: Kings-College-London/54237866946	2,047	3,587	5,384	7,534	37,370	396%
11	Institution: University of Leeds Fb name: universityofleeds	–	899	2,143	3,091	20,722	570%
12	Institution: University of Liverpool Fb name: livuni University-of-Liverpool/103803892992025 (Page URL changes since survey in May and August 2012)	2,811	3,742	4,410	5,239	63,790	1,118%
13	Institution: LSE Fb name: lseps	22,798	32,290	43,716	50,287	134,799	168%
14	Institution: University of Manchester Fb name: University-Of-Manchester/365078871967  – TheUniversityOfManchester   (Page URL changed for this survey)	1,978	4,734	9,356	13,751	51,659	278%
15	Institution: Newcastle University Fb name: newcastleuniversity	–	115	693	1,084	34,975	3,126%
16	Institution: University of Nottingham Fb name: TheUniofNottingham	3,588	9,991	14,692	17,133	119,444	597%
17	Institution: University of Oxford Fb name: the.university.of.oxford	137,395	293,010	541,000	628,000	1,564,871	149%
18	Institution: Queen Mary, University of London Fb name: Queen-Mary-University-of-London/107998909223423 – QMLNews (Page URL changed for this survey)	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	13,362	55,545	316%
19	Institution: Queen’s University Belfast Fb name: QueensUniversityBelfast	–	5,211	10,063	16,989	19,783	16%
20	Institution: University of Sheffield Fb name: theuniversityofsheffield	6,646	12,412	19,308	22,746	67,472	197%
21	Institution: University of Southampton Fb name: unisouthampton	3,328	6,387	18,062	19,790	49,876	152%
22	Institution: University College London Fb name: UCLOfficial	977	4,346	33,853	37,493	91,152	143%
23	Institution: University of Warwick Fb name: warwickuniversity	8,535	12,112	14,472	15,103	47,204	212%
24	Institution: University of York Fb name: universityofyork	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	11,212	19,256	73%
	TOTAL	287,767	566,691	998,991	1,116,077	3,600,2652	208%

Note

• The data for the surveys was collected on 11 January 2011, 25 September  2011 (estimate),  16 May 2012, 2 August 2012 and 14 July 2014.

Summary

Figure 1: Overall number of Facebook ‘likes’ for Russell Group universities from January 2011 – July 2014

As can be seen from Figure 1 which shows the growth in the overall number of Facebook ‘likes’ for Russell Group universities from January 2011 – July 2014 there has been a significant growth since the last survey. However please note the following caveats:

• There has been a gap of two years before the latest survey.
• There are now 24 Russell Group universities as opposed to the 20 covered in the initial set of surveys.

It should also be noted that comparisons of the numbers of ‘likes’ across individual institutions are probably not very meaningful due to the differing numbers of staff and students across the institutions. However the trends may be more meaningful. especially the trends across the aggregation of the institutions.

The survey published on 2 August 2012 reported that the number of Facebook ‘likes’ for the 24 Russell Group Universities had exceeded 1 million for the first time. However as shown in Figure 2 over half of these likes were for the University of Oxford with the University of Cambridge being the next most popular: these two institutions represent 67% of the total. As can be seen from Figure 3 these two institutions have maintained their positions and now represent 65%.

Figure 2: Facebook ‘Likes’ for Russell Group universities in August 2012

Implications

When Facebook was first launched access was restricted to approved institutions (which the University of Cambridge being the first in the UK to provide accounts for its students). In may 2007 John Kirriemuir felt that Something IS Going On With Facebook! after spotting weak signals of its potential importance. We then saw doubts expressed regarding its relevance for institutions characterised, perhaps, by the statement “stay out of my space“). However the popularity of the service led to suggestions that there was a need for an open alternative – but Diaspora was felt to have the potential to provide an open alternative, but as the post on Whatever Happened to Facebook-Killer Diaspora? concluded the answer was “nothing“.

Now, it would appear, institutional use of Facebook is no longer a policy issue (should we have an account) but rather raises a number of operational issues to be addressed: How should we manage it? How much effort should we allocate to it? and what metrics should we measure to demonstrate the value we get from the service?

Perhaps these are questions which will be asked at IWMW 2014 later this week.

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