The data in this post has been updated, as of November 16, 2010. Due to data limitations from the Facebook API, the original data pull had not been complete. We re-pulled the data for the 4-week period October 17-November 13, 2010 and re-ran our analysis.
As a company that focuses on the intersection of higher education and social networking, specifically Facebook, Varsity Outreach has been tracking the performance of college Facebook Pages for over a year now. You can visit our Directory of College Facebook Pages to see trends in growth of fans (or likes, depending on which term you prefer). Recently, we've begun analyzing the posts that are shared on these college Facebook Pages. A couple months ago, we shared some analysis we did on 601 U.S. college Facebook Pages, trying to uncover some general trends around engagement.
Now, we're releasing some additional findings on college Facebook Pages. Unless otherwise specified, the data shared is for October 17, 2010, to November 13, 2010.
Most Active College Facebook Pages
First, we wanted to see which schools were doing their best to keep their Facebook Pages fresh with a constant flow of content. Below are the top 20 college Facebook Pages by the number of posts over this 4-week period. We only counted posts from the page itself, not from fans. All of these schools averaged more than two posts per day on their Facebook Page, with the top school, South Carolina, averaging a whopping 14.5 posts per day.
| Rank | School | Posts | |
| 1 |  | Official University of South Carolina Page (Columbia, SC) Average Engagement Score: 0.915 | 408 posts |
| 2 |  | Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY) Average Engagement Score: 0.796 | 231 posts |
| 3 |  | Harding University (Searcy, AR) Average Engagement Score: 0.550 | 142 posts |
| 4 |  | Jackson State University (Jackson, MS) Average Engagement Score: 0.915 | 138 posts |
| 5 |  | Taylor University Trojans (Upland, IN) Average Engagement Score: 1.173 | 128 posts |
| 6 |  | Northwest Missouri State University (Maryville, MO) Average Engagement Score: 0.650 | 124 posts |
| 7 |  | LSU (Baton Rouge, LA) Average Engagement Score: 0.854 | 120 posts |
| 8 |  | Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA) Average Engagement Score: 0.461 | 118 posts |
| 9 |  | McNeese State University (Lake Charles, LA) Average Engagement Score: 0.585 | 115 posts |
| 10 |  | Eastern Illinois University (Charleston, IL) Average Engagement Score: 0.255 | 113 posts |
| 11 |  | Penn State (University Park, PA) Average Engagement Score: 0.766 | 106 posts |
| 12 |  | The University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) Average Engagement Score: 1.181 | 101 posts |
| 13 |  | Brock University (Saint Catharines, ON) Average Engagement Score: 0.591 | 97 posts |
| 14 |  | UWGB (Green Bay, WI) Average Engagement Score: 1.232 | 92 posts |
| 15 |  | Howard University (Washington, DC) Average Engagement Score: 0.503 | 92 posts |
| 16 |  | University of Michigan-Flint (Flint, MI) Average Engagement Score: 0.941 | 91 posts |
| 17 |  | Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago, IL) Average Engagement Score: 2.616 | 87 posts |
| 18 |  | Florida A&M University (Tallahassee, FL) Average Engagement Score: 1.768 | 86 posts |
| 19 |  | University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL) Average Engagement Score: 1.995 | 81 posts |
| 20 |  | Missouri State University (Springfield, MO) Average Engagement Score: 0.368 | 79 posts |
Most Engaging College Facebook Pages
We also wanted to see which schools had the most engagement over this month-and-a-half long period. We used the same formula to track engagement that we used in our previous analysis:
Engagement Score
We have only included college Facebook Pages with at least 5 posts during this period. We have also broken them out into four categories based on the size of their fan base so that the comparisons were more apples-to-apples.
Very Large (25,000+ Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
| 1 |  | Texas A&M University (College Station, TX) | 5.877 38 posts |
| 2 |  | The University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS) | 4.942 11 posts |
| 3 |  | Auburn University (Auburn, AL) | 4.618 14 posts |
| 4 |  | Kaplan University (Fort Lauderdale, FL) | 4.503 16 posts |
| 5 |  | Mississippi State University (Starkville, MS) | 4.470 34 posts |
| 6 |  | Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) | 4.184 15 posts |
| 7 |  | Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK) | 3.945 39 posts |
| 8 |  | Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) | 3.705 8 posts |
| 9 |  | University of Oregon (Eugene, OR) | 3.511 27 posts |
| 10 |  | University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI) | 3.337 18 posts |
Large (7,500-24,999 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
| 1 |  | Siena College (Loudonville, NY) | 11.576 10 posts |
| 2 |  | New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM) | 8.653 6 posts |
| 3 |  | North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (Greensboro, NC) | 7.522 6 posts |
| 4 |  | Capella University (Online) | 7.326 14 posts |
| 5 |  | Tarleton State University (Stephenville, TX) | 5.626 17 posts |
| 6 |  | Smith College (Northampton, MA) | 5.459 34 posts |
| 7 |  | Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) | 5.437 26 posts |
| 8 |  | California State University, Northridge (Northridge, CA) | 5.021 15 posts |
| 9 |  | North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC) | 4.922 37 posts |
| 10 |  | Miami University (Oxford, OH) | 4.570 9 posts |
Medium (2,500-7,499 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
| 1 |  | SUNY New Paltz (New Paltz, NY) | 8.701 8 posts |
| 2 |  | California Lutheran University (Thousand Oaks, CA) | 6.343 8 posts |
| 3 |  | Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA) | 6.249 15 posts |
| 4 |  | Kenyon College (Gambier, OH) | 5.727 16 posts |
| 5 |  | Dixie State College (Saint George, UT) | 5.696 17 posts |
| 6 |  | Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA) | 5.519 17 posts |
| 7 |  | University of St. Thomas (Saint Paul, MN) | 5.515 38 posts |
| 8 |  | Iowa State University (Ames, IA) | 5.182 10 posts |
| 9 |  | Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) | 5.078 28 posts |
| 10 |  | Winston-Salem State University (Winston-Salem, NC) | 5.031 10 posts |
Small (<2,500 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
| 1 |  | McPherson College (McPherson, KS) | 10.451 15 posts |
| 2 |  | University of Minnesota Rochester (Rochester, MN) | 9.636 13 posts |
| 3 |  | Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR) | 8.335 18 posts |
| 4 |  | VCU School of Business (Richmond, VA) | 7.485 7 posts |
| 5 |  | The Citadel Alumni Association (Charleston, SC) | 7.331 29 posts |
| 6 |  | College of the Rockies (Cranbrook, BC) | 7.184 7 posts |
| 7 |  | Elon University Admissions (Elon, NC) | 7.135 7 posts |
| 8 |  | New Mexico Tech (Socorro, NM) | 7.118 29 posts |
| 9 |  | Kaplan College (Multiple Locations) | 6.988 5 posts |
| 10 |  | Paul Smith's College Admissions (Paul Smiths, NY) | 6.687 14 posts |
When Colleges Post on Facebook
This last chart highlights when colleges post on Facebook by day of the week. As you'd expect, colleges don't do a lot of posting on the weekends. However, posts on the weekends seem to be the most engaging (especially on Saturday, which may have to do with college football, given the period we analyzed).
Post and Engagement by Day of the Week
We'll continue to share periodic updates regarding the data we collect on colleges and Facebook. We'd love to hear any insights or interesting anecdotes that you have to share in the comments.
Labels: data, Facebook, Metrics, Social Media, Strategy
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8 Comments:
The N.C. State page is not the University page, it's a page run by a fan. Are you measuring unofficial pages versus official?
We typically try to measure the official pages. Thanks for the heads up. For future stats, we'll incorporate the official NC State page.
Noticed that you've included UWGB in your "Directory of College Facebook Pages" but didn't include them in your "Most Active College Facebook Pages" list. Well over 100 posts during that time frame (Sept26-Nov10). Just sayin.
Thanks for the heads up. We just noticed an issue with the Facebook API results we pulled back. Facebook doesn't go back more than 30 days for Page posts. So we're going to re-run the data and update the post.
We have updated the data in this post for the 4-week period (October 17-November 13).
Interesting stats! I noticed you didn't include Dordt College in your list. Could you please add it? We've grown by 1,000 fans in the last 4 months, to almost 2,600, and I'm guessing we would have made one or more of your lists had you looked at our data. http://www.facebook.com/dordtcollege Thanks for your consideration.
Thanks for sharing these stats! I will say I'm more interested in the most engaging pages; quality is better than quantity. And Posting 14+ times a day will get you hidden from newsfeeds - not sure that's a good strategy!
@holly I would agree that quality trumps quantity. Interestingly, though, some of the most engaging college Facebook pages do still average more than one post a day. When we did a quick look at some of the more prolific pages, it's often times related to sports updates (posting scores throughout a football game, for example). It might be worth creating a separate sports presence for your sports fans (and avoid driving off alumni that don't want constant score updates).
@sonyajk We've added Dordt to our list of schools for future analysis.
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