Aggies Top Social Influence Ranking of Colleges

College Search & Lists
1

<p>Klout.com is a service that measures the online influence of individuals and brands. They put together a ranking of colleges that looks at how active they are in social media, how much buzz they get, etc., in Facebook, Twitter, and others.</p>

<p>The top 5 are: </p>

<ol>
<li>Texas A & M (73)</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin - Madison (71)</li>
<li>Harvard University (69)</li>
<li>University of Oklahoma (67)</li>
<li>Stanford University (67)</li>
</ol>

<p>The whole list: [Top</a> 10 Most Influential Colleges Measuring Online Influence: The Official Klout Blog](<a href=“http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/09/top-10-most-influential-colleges/]Top”>http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/09/top-10-most-influential-colleges/)</p>

<p>I certainly wouldn’t use this list to narrow my [college</a> search](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/]college”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/), but it’s kind of interesting to see the different types of schools that rank highly for online influence. It’s a mix of big state schools, a few big brand elites, and a few private colleges.</p>

2

<p>Aggies probably leaped to No. 1 due to the whole jump to the SEC. Lots of discussion surrounding that…also Oklahoma’s courtship with the Pac-12.</p>

3

<p>Even as a supporter of the #2 school I have no idea what this means. Russell Wilson probably generated some of our traffic. Great guy/player but actual meaning in the global sense?? Not so much.</p>

4

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<p>Or the attraction for certain utterly benevolent groups to dissect a certain Southern governor’s transcript. :)</p>

5

<p>^ Ah yes. Good point.</p>

6

<p>I think it has to do with frequency of #tag mentions on Twitter. Which makes this ‘study’ close to worthless, not because studies using data from Twitter are useless, but rather, this particular approach.</p>

7

<p>Yeah the SEC move plus a certain prominent alum who has been in the news a lot lately are probably the reasons why TAMU’s rating is so high.</p>

8

<p>Harvard, Indiana, Berkeley and Marquette are the only four of the top 10 who have not been featured prominently in sports news recently.</p>

9

<p>I’d guess sports is a major factor in social mentions. Texas A&M, though, has been working social media for a while. They were an early Facebook fan page adopter, for one thing. </p>

<p>A key factor is interactivity. A school that uses Twitter mainly to link to press releases or announce application deadlines won’t get as much traction as a school that monitors mentions and interacts personally.</p>

10

<p>Seems to me that this method is very susceptible manipulation by organized campaigns. Also, it cannot distinguish between fame and infamy. Both count equally as hits.</p>

11

<p>^^^ I agree. While anyone can count/rank data it doesn’t necessarily mean anything useful. I wouldn’t suggest using this as part of any criteria when choosing a college. I mostly associate ‘brand’ recognition with a company and its products/services.</p>

12

<p>speaking of infamy/fame a few weeks ago UW Madison had some attention on them <a href=“http://www.dailycardinal.com/opinion/ceo-chairman-responds-to-uw-protests-1.2594103[/url]”>http://www.dailycardinal.com/opinion/ceo-chairman-responds-to-uw-protests-1.2594103&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>Dumb right-wingers got served.</p>

14

<p>Gig Em Aggies!</p>

15

<p>I’ve only heard of three and five. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I’m surprised Harvard’s not number one, honestly, it’s such a name-brand school.</p>

16

<p>^ Apparently you live in a box in which college sports does not penetrate at all.</p>

17

<p>No it was the Texas A&M Wobble Flash Mob dance on youtube that edged em out!</p>

<p>[Texas</a> A&M Wobble Flash Mob - Official Video - YouTube](<a href=“Texas A&M Wobble Flash Mob - Official Video - YouTube”>Texas A&M Wobble Flash Mob - Official Video - YouTube)</p>

<p>My daughter’s friend made the video for a class project to try to make a video go viral. Boy, did it ever… Hope he got an A.</p>

18

<p>Aggies are extreme super fans of their alma mater, so I’m really not surprised that they are number one on this “ranking.” Also Rick Perry being an alumni must have helped them, especially considering twitter hash-tags.</p>

19

<p>If they did this today, A&M would be nowhere near 1st.</p>