MBA50 US B-school Social Media Ranking 2013

How good are business schools at engaging their audience through Twitter, Facebook and other social media?

The results of the MBA50 Business Schools Social Media Ranking 2013 show Harvard Business School leading the way on Facebook and Linkedin, and Stanford GSB attracting the biggest following on Twitter and You Tube. These two schools are significantly ahead of other leading US business schools, while the difference between the top 5 and the top 25 is striking, even when you factor in respective MBA class size. And neither Harvard nor Stanford offer undergraduate business courses, further reinforcing their impressive social media performance.

Below are the results of the MBA50 US B-School Social Media Ranking 2013 for Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and YouTube:

In the ten years since Linkedin and Facebook were founded, many business schools have been slow to embrace social media, particularly in the way they market themselves. Though a growing number of institutions now include MBA classes on how to monetize social media and meet a demand for media-savvy employees, their own use of them still appears haphazard. Search YouTube for Columbia Business School, for example, and you’ll quickly find material ranging from student interviews to presentations from guest speakers. But users are more attracted to the offbeat: the official videos from the admissions office attract just a few hundred page views, while Every Breath You Take, a parody by Columbia students about the dean wanting Ben Bernanke’s job, has been viewed 2.5 million times.

With the potentially disruptive arrival of massive open online courses (MOOCs), business schools face further pressure to engage online. The Wharton School is the latest to commit course content online for free, announcing that a number of foundation courses from year one of the MBA program will be available through the Coursera platform. While MBA applicants are advised to review their own social media presence as part of the admissions process, what level of online engagement can they expect from the schools they aspire to enroll with?

Scores are based on overall reach, though this does not take into account the active participation of those that like, follow or subscribe. A strong case could also be made for the respective value of a YouTube subscriber consuming hours of video content versus a fan or follower elsewhere.

The University of Virginia’s Darden School performs particularly well on Facebook and ranks #3 on Linkedin. The school’s Dean, Bob Bruner, is leading by example, as one of the most active blogging business school deans. The Wharton School boasts a further 26,404 Twitter followers for its popular Knowledge@Wharton, the multi-language online business analysis journal that reaches millions of students and professionals each year.

But further down the table, a number of schools are struggling to attract an active following. Perhaps not surprising for one of the business schools in the survey, as they did not have any social media links from the home page of their website.

The survey was limited to the 25 US business schools that feature in the MBA50 Premiership, a composite ranking of the five major full-time MBA media rankings. There are schools beyond this group such as Babson and Notre Dame’s Mendoza whose social media reach would merit a place in the top 25.

Click here for MBA50 US B-School Twitter Ranking 2013

Click here for MBA50 US B-School Facebook Ranking 2013

Click here for MBA50 US B-School Linkedin Ranking 2013

Click here for MBA50 US B-School YouTube Ranking 2013

And click here if you want a short cut to all the MBA50 US B-School links for Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Blogs, YouTube and iTunes