In April 2010 Forbes listed “America’s Best Prep Schools” in an article highlighting their picks for the top twenty private secondary schools in the US.
According to Forbes, a third of the graduates that these schools produce attend ‘Top 10’ colleges including Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.
It would not be difficult to detail the many well known and respected alumni that these prestigious schools account for, yet in this post we take a more social look at this list, in a similar way that we examined The Independent School League.
The charts below represent the largest accounts found for each school on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Facebook
We start our examination with the world’s largest social network, Facebook.
In a dominating fashion, but while also benefiting from one of the largest alumni communities for the count, Phillips Andover takes the lead in “Likes” on Facebook Pages. Andover takes an “all-encompassing” and open approach to their Facebook Page by encouraging prospective students, current students, alumni and faculty to become involved in the conversation.
However, other schools, such as Noble and Greenough, have a more targeted strategy with their Facebook Page by creating a place geared to graduates and their families. This strategy enables N&G to focus on more alumni centric messaging.
LinkedIn
As avid users and fans of LinkedIn, we were excited to see how members of the ‘Top 20’ would stack up based on the number of members they had in their LinkedIn Group.
Again, Philips Andover and Philips Exeter made a strong showing in this category, while, Lawrenceville School, Milton Academy and Deerfield round out the top five largest groups.
Twitter
Lastly on Twitter, Andover, Exeter and Deerfield once again appear at top spots, as Groton School and Horace Mann also demonstrate their social muscle by maintaining a strong Twitter following.
School Account Totals – Weighted By Current Enrollment on a 1-10 Score
The scale below for respectively, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, is a result of size of account (number of group members, likes and followers) divided by number of current students enrolled.
Implementing a mobile strategy is an important aspect of a social strategy.
EverTrue is proud to work with 9 of the ‘Top 20’ including Philips Andover, Deerfield, Horace Mann, Harvard-Westlake, Roxbury Latin, St. Paul’s School, The Winsor School, Milton Academy and Groton School.
Congrats to all those institutions who made Forbe’s “America’s Best Prep Schools.”
What strategies has your alumni office found most effective around social media?