Adapted from an internal document we use for benchmarks.
Industry Snapshot
via Rival IQ | https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/2017-social-media-industry-benchmark-report/
College and Universities have the highest engagement rate on Facebook and Instagram.
What is surprising is that on Facebook, posts that are simploy status updates do almost as well as video and photo. This is unique to colleges and universities.
Best Practices for Higher Education
Use more status updates on Facebook
Higher Ed Average Engagement Rate & Posts Per Day
Colleges and Universities are second only to the media industry for the worst performance on twitter.
Higher Ed: Facebook Engagement
Facebook:
- Engagement:0.33%
- Facebook remains the top social channel for brands with a wider audience reach
- Posts Per Day: 1.3 (Industry Average)
- CUNY Posts ~ 1 per day
Facebook Post Engagement Rate By Type of Media:
M+R 2017 Social Media Director’s Guide to Benchmarks (August 2017)
- Link: 4.3%
- Photo: 5.2%
- Video: 4.2%
Status updates gain engagement without investing in photos or video.
Higher Ed: Twitter Engagement
- Engagement: 0.052%
- Posts Per Day: 2.6
- CUNY Posts: 5 – 10 per day.
Video and photos are the biggest opportunities for Twitter engagement.
Higher Ed: Instagram Hashtags
- Engagement: 3.55%
- Posts Per Day: 0.6
- CUNY Posts: (Currently, ~1 per week)
- Industries in this study post as frequently as once a day to every 3 days. Focus on quality photos rather than frequency to dial into your audience.
Top Hashtags by engagement rate (used by more than 10 colleges in study)
87% of posts on Instagram included hashtags.
Seasonal and nature photos from around campus are easy wins, driving higher engagement on instagram.
Competitor Schools
According to Rival IQ, the top 5 overall colleges and universities for social media engagement are:
- Northern Arizona University – public
- University of South Carolina – public
- James Madison University – public
- University of Dayton – private
- U.S. Military Academy -public
Out of BestCollege.com’s 25 “Stars of College Social Media,” 17 are public universities:
- University of Michigan
- Ohio State University
- Texas A&M
- University of Florida
- Louisiana State University
- University of Texas – Austin
- Michigan State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of California – Los Angeles
- University of Alabama
- University of Oregon
- University of Kentucky
- University of Oklahoma
- University of California – Berkeley
- University of Wisconsin
- Auburn University
- Indiana University – Bloomington
Email Marketing Averages
Gathered data from over 200 million emails sent from Constant Contact customers. The list below represents the averages for the Higher Education Industry (Update Constant Contact October 2017)
- Open Rate All: 17.81%
- Open Rate Mobile: 63.92%
- Open Rate Tablet: 10.17%
- Open Rate Desktop: 56.02%
- Click Through Rate: 8.46%
- Bounce Rate: 7.52%
- Unsubscribe Rate:0.10%
MailChimp’s report focuses on Education as a whole, without making the notable separation between Higher Ed and Elementary – H.S.
- Open: 22.00%
- Click: 2.63%
- Soft Bounce: 0.55%
- Hard Bounce: 0.46%
- Abuse: 0.02%
- Unsub: 0.20%
Resources
- Mailchimp Benchmarks (February 2017)
- Rival IQ 2017 Benchmarks (April 2017)
- Beginner’s Guide to Social Media (July 2017)
- So… Is that good? (August 2017)
- M+R 2017 Social Media Director’s Guide to Benchmarks (August 2017)
- M+R 2017 Benchmarks
- How to use Twitter Analytics (October 2017)
- Constant Contact Benchmarks (December 2017)
- http://www.bestcolleges.com/features/best-college-social-media/
- 2017-Hootsuite-Student Lifecycle Social Campus
- 2017-Hootsuite-The Social Campus
- 2017-RivalIQ-Higher Ed Social Engagement Report
