For the third year in a row, BYU is a top 10 university for social media engagement
August 20, 2019
Thanks to its passionate student body, faculty, alumni and friends, BYU finds itself ranked No. 6 in the nation among universities for social media engagement.
The ranking comes from a recent Higher Ed Social Media Engagement Report, which ranks universities each year based on engagement with their followers — likes, retweets, comments, shares, etc.
BYU is one of only two universities to have ranked in the top 10 each of the past three years. In platform specifics, BYU's Twitter comes in at No. 2 in the country for engagement. Facebook is No. 15. Instagram is No. 70.
Here are a few of the most engaging BYU posts from the past year
Ranking tweets always do well, but being No. 1 on this list from Forbes did especially well. Twitter has also been an effective tool in sharing important campus information and addressing current issues.
Twitter can also be a place to have some fun. This meme-adoption certainly got some likes ... and created some interesting conversation. #BYUHalloween is always a big day on social media. This year especially so, with this tweet of a costumed BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe being retweeted by many national sports writers and outlets.
On Facebook, this video was posted after the data was analyzed, but you might be interested to know that since it was posted on May. 29, it has had at least a comment per day for 83 consecutive days, as of when this rundown has been posted. This is the longest such streak in BYU social media history. The video has 3.7 million views and a reach of nearly 9 million.
Beating the No. 6 team in the country doesn't hurt engagement.
This research video got a lot of views and shares.
On Instagram, the Freshman Y photo each year is always engaging.
Beyond what's posted in the feed, the majority of engagement on the BYU Instagram account, along with the majority of focus and strategy, happens within the story. This story on respect is the most engaging story ever posted from the account.
There were 59 Instagram story takeovers last year. These were the three most engaging takeovers.
New BYU research published in PLOS One found that the more scientific publications were referenced in popular media — mainstream news and social media — the more they were also cited in peer-reviewed literature.
Last week was the 6th Annual BYU Golden Hashtags, an event where the best 2017-18 social media content posted from throughout the BYU campus is recognized and best practices are promoted.
