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OSU Facebook

Posted on | December 8, 2010 | 1,434 views | Comments Off

By Adam King

By the end of the year, more than 200,000 people are expected to have hit the “Like” button on Ohio State’s Facebook page. It’s a testament to the growth of social media and just how much the medium can’t be ignored as part of a university’s outreach and engagement.

It was only back in July when OSU hit the 100,000 fan mark after 2 ½ years on Facebook (facebook.com/osu), so interest has multiplied exponentially since then, pushing the Buckeyes to No. 2 among Big Ten schools in raw Facebook numbers. Of course, that’s not the only social media outlet Ohio State utilizes.

“Increasingly users expect to see an Ohio State presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,” said Kristen Convery, web editor in University Marketing Communications, who manages social media and osu.edu. “Facebook was simply another communication tool for us to use to reach potential audiences. As many things on the web are, it was an experiment.”

A successful one, it turns out, though exactly who is visiting the page was a bit of a surprise. Convery surmised students would be the bulk of the users. Instead it’s users 25 and older who are most actively engaged with the page.

And they like visiting content they can interact with, such as the Image of the Day — a random photo taken on campus. From the comments below the photos, visitors feel a nostalgic longing for a return to their OSU days. Quite a bit of commentary flows in for user-submitted O-H-I-O photos as well as any post about the Buckeye football team.

“The page also has been extremely useful in crisis communications,” said Convery, alluding to the recent bomb scare that closed four buildings on campus. “Users also see the page as a place to get questions answered. We have partnered with the Office of Admissions to get their help in answering questions from prospective students. We are constantly evaluating what works and what doesn’t on our Facebook page based on what users are showing us they want to see.”

But is it worth a university’s, let alone a single department’s, time and effort to regularly maintain a Facebook page?

In terms of value based on anecdotal evidence, Convery says yes.

“I think our social media efforts have been extremely valuable,” she said. “It’s a great way for us to stay in touch with people who want to hear from Ohio State yet don’t visit the website on a daily basis.”

Convery also points to a white paper from Syncapse Corp., which sought to put an empirical value on a Facebook fan, although from a retail product perspective. Still, the paper also delved into brand loyalty and found that people who fanned a brand were 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend the product to their friends. And Facebook fans were 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using the brand.

How that translates monetarily for Ohio State, in terms of donations to the university or convincing friends and family to attend as students, is unknown. But keeping a Facebook presence keeps the engagement active.

Much of Ohio State’s Facebook content is derived from what was generated for the osu.edu website, so media already available has been repackaged — simplifying the upkeep but reaching many more people than before. OSU’s entire social media package, including Twitter feeds and blogs from departments across the university, can be tapped into at a single site: osu.edu/interact.

“The Interact page is the place to go to see all Ohio State’s social media at a glance,” Convery said. “There’s really something for everyone: Facebook and Twitter content, web videos, user-submitted photography and great blog posts from our faculty and students.”

FAN-tastic

Number of Facebook fans at Big Ten institutions (as of Dec. 6)

Ohio State — 193,129

Penn State — 161,826

Michigan State — 109,307

Indiana — 97,513

Wisconsin — 67,184

Purdue — 60,017

Minnesota — 53,055

Illinois — 40,819

Northwestern — 19,917

Iowa — 10,219

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