While there are no big shifts in terms of official Facebook and Twitter presence, there is some movement when it comes to including social media icons on the homepage. The percentage of institutions that feature at least one social media icon on their homepage has gone up from 26% to 34%.

Facebook
According to our research, participating institutions have not created any new official Facebook pages. This is the breakdown for each of the four groups participating in the program:

• Federal institutes of technology: EPFL is the only one of the two institutes with an official Facebook presence and leads in terms of Facebook likes amongst all institutions.
• Universities: Eight of the 10 Swiss universities are present on Facebook, while HSG and UNIL have no presence.
• Universities of applied sciences: Out of the 14 participating universities of applied sciences, 10 have an official presence on Facebook*.
• Research institutes and other public institutions: Three out of the 11 participating institutions have an official Facebook presence and ZBUZH comes in fifth overall in terms of likes for Q3.

Official Facebook pages

For a list of all official Facebook pages found, visit this page with a list of links.

Twitter
Sixty percent of participating institutions have an official Facebook account and 50% have an official Twitter account:

• Federal institutes of technology: The most followed Twitter accounts are EPFL and ETH Zurich. EPFL has accounts in English and French and a combined number of 2396 followers. ETHZ also has two accounts, one in English and one in German, and has a total of 1220 followers. 
• Universities: Eight out of 10 universities have an official Twitter account. The only two universities without a Twitter account are HSG and UZH.
• Universities of applied sciences: Eight of the 14 participating universities of applied sciences have an official Twitter account.
• Research institutes and other public institutions: The research institutes and other public institutions are not using Twitter for outreach. ZBUZH is the only member of this group that tweets with an official account.

Official Twitter accounts (followers and tweets)

Take a look at this list of official Twitter accounts.

Social Media Icons on Homepage
As mentioned in the last blog post, we take the social media icons on the homepage of the institutions as an indicator for the integration of social media in the institution’s communications efforts. At the end of the second quarter of 2011, nine institutions featured at least one social media icon on their homepage with a link to the official account (26% of the participating institutions). At this point 13 of the participating institutions have social media icons on their homepage, which equals 34%.

The table below provides an overview of Facebook and Twitter presence of all participating institutions in comparison with use of social media icons on their homepage. Institutions in bold have both an official Twitter and Facebook account and feature at least one social media icon on their homepage:

A majority of the participants have an official presence on Twitter or Facebook:

• Sixty-eight percent of the participating institutions have either an official Facebook page or a Twitter account, but only 50% of these institutions actually feature a social media icon on their homepage with a link to their official presence on social media.
• Only five institutions have a Facebook and Twitter presence and feature at least one social media icon on their homepage.
• The majority of these five institutions are from the French part of Switzerland.
• HWZ is the only German institution to be active on Facebook and Twitter and feature the icons on their homepage. Data for ZBUZH is not available for Q2, which makes it impossible to identify them as a frontrunner.

Please note that we have only taken into account official Facebook pages and official Twitter accounts managed by the umbrella organization. A large number of participants have very active departments, but no social media presence as an organization as a whole.

Please let us know if any of your social media accounts are missing.

For a list of participating institutions go to this page.

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* Our research for universities of applied sciences is limited to the universities participating in the program. Depending on the structure and nature of the institutions, they either participate as a whole (like BFH or HSLU) or as subschools (e.g. most of the subschools of the university of applied sciences in Zurich participate, such as the HWZ or ZHAW).

**icon has to link to their official presence

*** joined the program after Q2 and data for that quarter is therefore not available