For seven consecutive years, CASE has partnered with Huron Education and mStoner to survey educational institutions about their social media activities. The overarching goal of the research is to create knowledge and resources for education professionals as they assess and implement social media strategies for communication and engagement.

2016 Social Media Survey

The latest version of the global CASE/Huron/mStoner survey was conducted in February 2016. More than 1,100 respondents representing many functional areas from all types of institutions responded to the survey. You can download a summary of the findings by clicking this link.Some of the highlights from the 2016 Social Media survey include:

• Nearly 90 percent of respondents agreed that social media is a much more important part of their communications and marketing efforts than three years ago.
• When convincing senior leadership of the value of social media, 45 percent of respondents point to the opportunity to connect with new audiences while 42 percent name the ability to engage young alumni.
• Use of Instagram rose from 54 percent in 2015 to 65 percent in 2016.
• Use of Snapchat grew from five percent in 2015 to 15 percent in 2016.
• Boosting posts via advertising is growing, with 59 percent saying they boost posts, advertise or promote on Facebook while 18 percent promote or advertise on Twitter.

The results of the survey were unveiled at the 2016 CASE Social Media and Community conference. A white paper on the survey results will be available later this year.