Syracuse University, once ranked second on the list of most influential social media colleges, has dropped to seventh, according to Klout rankings.

Klout is a social media company that measures online influence. In January, SU’s Klout score of 64 trailed only Stanford University, which had a score of 70. Professors at SU are predominantly unalarmed by this downgrade, but they possess contrasting views on the direction that SU’s social media is heading.

Megan Berry, marketing manager for Klout, said in an email that the ranking system is out of 100. The rank is measured by an algorithm that measures three variables: true reach, how many people are influenced; amplification, how much they are influenced; and network score, how influential they are.

Berry said despite the fact that SU regressed in ranking, the Klout score of the university’s Twitter account increased from the last time it was released.

‘Syracuse’s score has actually gone up since we last did the list (64 to 66) but it looks like the other schools have stepped up their social media influence and the competition has become fierce,’ she said.

Anthony Rotolo, assistant professor of practice at the School of Information Studies, was not surprised by this decline and said that he has noticed a change to SU’s social media in the last few months that may have factored into this.

Rotolo led a team of students in launching SU’s various social media accounts in early 2010, he said. His team’s approach was focused on active community management, in which one or two individuals had the task to engage and offer assistance to the community through these platforms.

Unable to reach a new agreement with the university, Rotolo’s team stopped running SU’s social media in June. A full-time director of digital and social media now heads these platforms, he said.

Since this change in control, Rotolo noticed that SU’s posts are growing increasingly disjointed and are sometimes unrelated to the university. Accounts like the university’s Facebook and Foursquare page have also remained stagnant in terms of involvement and content, he said.

Rotolo said a group of 13 students now help attend to SU’s accounts, which is something that he has mixed feelings about.

‘Students are an important part of the recipe,’ he said. ‘But we used students for ideas and they were only online occasionally after they received training.’

He also has observed some questionable tweets that have been posted by the university’s Twitter account, he said.

On Thursday, the SU Twitter account addressed a tweet from a Twitter user that read, ‘IF YOU DON’T GO TO @SyracuseU, your life sucks,’ and responded with, ‘We could see this tweet on a t-shirt (caps included).’

Rotolo said posts like this could be alienating to individuals who were rejected from SU or could not attend for financial reasons. The post was later removed.

Kate Brodock, executive director of digital and social media, de-emphasized the implications of the Klout score.

‘I would often use Klout in the measurement toolkit of clients, as one of the data points to analyze for insight, to see how a few indicators are working or not, etc, but combine that data with usually more-important benchmarks,’ she said in an email.

Brodock also discussed how SU’s social media underwent two major shifts between the times these lists were released.

A team was assembled to maintain SU’s accounts during the summer until she could assume her position, she said. SU’s student social team, made of 13 students who work three-hour shifts, was put into place last week, she said.

The strategy revolves around adding organization to SU’s communities as well as filling the needs of alumni and students who may not be living on campus, she said.

William Ward, professor of practice in social media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, is pleased with the direction that SU’s social media is taking.

Ward downplayed the significance of the Klout ranking and said it is mostly based on the level of replies that an account is receiving, not the context and quality of the replies.

‘I think that the numbers are in good shape and the quality of the engagement is on track,’ he said.

Ward said he has seen an increased use of Twitter and other social media platforms in a professional manner, which is critical in both getting and keeping a job.

Said Ward: ‘I’ve had students hired out of my classes with the professional way that they use social media.’

dmsegelb@syr.edu 

Published on October 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dylan: dmsegelb@syr.edu | @dylan_segelbaum