slides: New England Colleges With The Biggest Social Media Reach

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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

GoLocalWorcester Features Team

Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University are not only two of the top-ranked colleges in America, they are also Top 100 social media players, according to author, blogger and inventor Vala Afshar. The Top 100 Best And Most Collaborative U.S. Colleges is Afshar's new ranking that looks at top-ranked colleges' social media presence, as measured by Klout and Kred.

"Colleges today are serving the most mobile and social customers in the world, many of whom are using multiple mobile devices to network and collaborate," Afshar writes in the Huffington Post article accompanying his new ranking. "Today, social networking is the most popular use of the web. A 2012 study noted that students are choosing colleges with social media clout. A survey of 7,000 high school students revealed that university social media accounts influenced their selections."

Harvard University took the #1 spot in Afshar's ranking, followed by Stanford University at #2, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor at #3, MIT at #4 and Syracuse University at #5.

To see how New England's top colleges ranked, check the slideshow, below.

Afshar compared each college's ranking in US News & World Report's Best Colleges List for 2013 with his index, which combined each school's Klout and Kred scores: "a measure of their engagements across all major social platforms," Afshar said. "Not surprisingly, the very best schools are also the most collaborative," he said. "What does this mean to businesses today? The very best students, graduating from the very best schools, are extremely social and expect transparency and collaboration at all levels of the organization."

Afshar cited a recent Harvard Business Review post "that suggested that higher education is being disrupted by 'digital natives', including K-12 institutions that are becoming more mobile and social. The changing landscape and the explosive growth of mobile and social technologies, including massive open online courses (MOOCs) is changing the educational experience," he said.

See which New England colleges made Afshar's rankings, in the slides below.  

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