'Fresh' UK Marketing News from theMarketingblog

-See how your #University / #BusinessSchool ranks in our new marketing tool #EduRank

-See how your #University / #BusinessSchool ranks in our new marketing tool #EduRank – http://www.edurank.co.uk 

3 years after the release of the Education Engagement Index (the first online tool to measure Universities’ and Colleges’ social media engagement) the Net Natives team have overhauled the service and relaunched it at EduRank.co.uk.

Edu Rank is the latest education marketing tool to help marketers compare Universitis’, Colleges’ and Business Schools’ social-media performance. Education institutions will be able to monitor their social media performance on a monthly basis and crucially, compare themselves with up to 3 other Universities, Colleges or Business Schools (see EduRank.biz)

Net Natives have also updated the way that institutions are scored and ranked in the index, taking into account the way that education marketers use social media to promote their institution vs using it for student engagement.

The new ranking groups social engagement into 4 categories (popularity, activity, participation and reaction) and adjusts the weighting to ensure that the emphasis is more on the student, rather than the university or college posting more. This results in a more accurate score that promotes the institutions that are most effective at using social media, to consistently engage students with relevant content. Not just those who push out the most marketing messages.

Of those universities currently taking the top 5 spots (1. Queen’s University Belfast; 2. Loughborough University; 3. Edge Hill University; 4. University of the West of Scotland; 5. University of Newcastle) only one* appeared in the top ten before July 2014. Of these institutions, their social media activity in 2014 has increased their ranking by an average of 26 places since December 2013.

*Edge Hill ranked in the top ten from May-December 2014 apart from October when they dropped to 12th.
**Only University of the West of Scotland didn’t place in the top ten in any month apart from December 2014.

Kailan D’Arcy, Marketing Manager at Net Natives said:

“With the major social media sites, like Facebook constantly tweaking their algorithms, we needed to update our index score to reflect the difference between a ‘Like’ and a ‘Share’ and a marketeer’s content vs a student ‘Comment’.

“The new Edu Rank formula reflects this change in how social media is used by both students and organisations, which gives a more accurate indication of the most engaging institutions.”

The index also pulls in the latest QS and THE World Rankings for all eligible Universities and will add Twitter and popular Chinese social-media site, Sina Weibo, to the index shortly.

For UK Universities with separate social media channels for international students, the ‘UK Universities for International Students’ index ranks them separately.

As with clearingstats.com (released winter 2014), EduRank.co.uk is exclusive to UK education institutions but an Australian and US version are in the pipeline for later this year.

Education marketers can now register for free at EduRank.co.uk