Design School Social Media Ranking 2014 Steve Diasio Ph.D. April 2014 The recent interest in design thinking has driven many students to seek out creative learning environment such as design schools as an alternative to business schools. Wall Street Journal has even professed, “Forget B-‐School, D-‐School is hot!” If design schools are gaining traction, how effective are design schools at engaging their audience through social media? The Design School Social Media Ranking 2014 indicates which schools are the most active using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Results show Parsons the New School of Design with a distinct advantage in their social media reach. Parsons the New School of Design leads design schools in Twitter, Facebook and YouTube followings. Savannah College of Art and Design ranked 4th in the total social media ranking however leads all design schools in LinkedIn followers to drive its social media strategy. Internationally, the University of the Arts London ranked 6th in the total social media ranking. Below are the results of the Design School Social Media Ranking 2014 for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube: If design schools are to continue their relevance in the educational marketplace their ability to attract, recruit, and communicate with future students, alumni, recruiters, and companies through social media seems to be a competency they are still learning themselves. Though social media is a component of the curriculum at many of the design schools, their own use of social media as a strategy to engage with an audience appears to be underutilized. For instance, the d. School at Stanford has a Facebook page but no likes on the page and it does not have its own YouTube channel. The d. School was the only school in the top 10 of the social media ranking that did not have a Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube on their website. The Design School Social Media Ranking methodology was based on overall reach and does not represent the activity or engagement from its followers and subscribers on each of the social media platforms. Each platform was given equal weight, however YouTube subscribers may consume video for an extended period of time, while LinkedIn followers may engage with the platform during job recruiting periods. Selected design schools included in the data collection had to be an independent institution offering a range of art and design degrees and have a minimum of 500 students enrolled to be considered for the ranking. Departments within university or colleges were not considered because of lack of data across the different social media platforms.
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