Arizona State University vs.

University of Arizona | Social Media Audit

The Arizona State University (ASU) is one of the three public universities located in Arizona.

Based in the city of Tempe, Arizona, ASU was established on March 12, 1885 on the same day as its now

largest in-state competitor: the University of Arizona. Since its origination, ASU has become a major

public university with a number one ranking in the United States for global impact on research and offers

over 800 degree programs. With this wide span of opportunities, ASU aims to “advance research and

discovery of public value; and assume fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and

overall health of the communities it serves” (Arizona State University). Considering the almost ninety

thousand undergraduate students and additional twenty thousand postgraduate students, the University

must continuously keep a large, positive, public standing to retain and bring in students. This public

standing is partially regulated through the use of social media. In this report we will be analyzing ASU’s

use of social media on Instagram and Facebook.

ASU’s school-spirited and broad tagline, “Learn to Thrive” offers insight into how broad their

audience is. ASU’s social media primarily targets potential students during their time in high school and

their parents, ASU’s current student population, and their alumni. This includes people of all gender

identities, and the primary age ranges of 18-25 and 40-60. The interests of these groups vary greatly,

which is one of the reasons that ASU’s marketing and public relations strategies need to include a wide

range of outputs. Interest include but are not limited to: admissions, student life, research spotlights,

staff spotlights, athletics at ASU, alumni content.

The demographics of ASU’s student population are mostly white, with Hispanic or Latinx coming

in as the second most enrolled:

“The enrolled student population at Arizona State University-Tempe, both undergraduate and
graduate, is 46.7% White, 20.3% Hispanic or Latino, 7.86% Asian, 4.3% Two or More Races,
3.53% Black or African American, 1.07% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.161% Native
Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders” (ASU- Tempe, 2019).
These demographics are indicative of who will be viewing the posts on ASU’s Facebook and Instagram

pages. Their social media needs to reflect who will be viewing the posts. Due to the large variety in

demographics, ASU needs to focus on highlighting its strengths as a diverse institution to fully engage

their audience.

Currently, ASU primarily utilizes its Facebook and Instagram as an informational resource for

students, parents, and alumni with a focus on uni-directional communication. Recent posts on both

social platforms focus on highlighting campus

services, buildings, and special occasions.

These posts contain lengthy captions providing

additional information on the topic matter,

and they often include links for more

information. The content on Facebook is

almost entirely external links to priority news

stories relating to the University’s

accomplishments or updated policies. Posts of

this variety ensure consistent brand awareness

being conveyed to the target audience, but sustains little focus on engagement. The current social

campaign cannot be classified as having attitudinal or behavioral effects on the target audience. Consider

ASU’s current instagram layout. Five of the nine posts shown are professionalized graphics, and most of

these graphics consistently receive less likes than those posts only containing campus or student

imagery. The second post in the top row received about 3,900 likes compared to the first post in the

second row’s like count of about 3,000. ASU’s followers want to be engaged, but the current ASU

information-focused strategy is not yielding exceptional results.

 One of ASU’s strongest in-state competitors is the University of Arizona (UA). UA offers a similar

focus on research, STEM careers, and a powerful school spirit. UA’s target audience overlaps in that they

are both public universities in Arizona that have a nationwide and international presence for

recruitment. However, based on a review of quantitative data from UA’s Facebook and Instagram, UA’s

usage of social media has been more compelling. Using a resource called Rival IQ, ASU and UA’s social

media analytics were compared over two weeks on each platform. On Facebook, ASU and UA’s

engagement rate is estimated to fall below the average rate for higher education brands. ASU’s is

significantly lower, though, at a .04% engagement rate compared to UA’s .079%. Based on this and other

findings, UA utilizes their social media to build a bidirectional communication relationship with its target

audience. Referencing the snapshot below, UA’s Instagram has double the engagement rate per post

than ASU’s Instagram, despite ASU having twenty-two thousand more followers. However, it is important

to note that UA posts significantly less per week than ASU, which implies that less frequent posting may

be to the benefit of their engagement rate.

Instagram Rival IQ Head-to-Head Snapshot

Facebook Rival IQ Head-to-Head Snapshot

The analytics from Facebook follow a similar pattern: UA leads in engagement per post, but ASU

leads in audience and posting frequency. It follows that the same pitfalls of the ASU Instagram are
occurring on their Facebook. What causes this difference between the universities? For one, UA

predominantly posts non-text images that generally receive a higher number of social interactions. A

majority of UA’s most recent posts include a call to action, like asking the audience to comment a

response. For example, one of UA’s recent posts asks students and alumni to mention the most valuable

thing they have learned at UA, resulting in 91 comments. According to Rival IQ, UA receives an average

of 69 comments per Instagram post compared to ASU’s 20.

Rival IQ’s insights clearly show that prioritizing authentic, engaging content in higher education

social campaigns is key to building positive relationships with the audience. As can be seen from ASU’s

current media presence, unidirectional communication is less seen, interacted with, and shared across

social media. On the other hand, UA has benefited from a less formal, more conversational style of

communication that encourages responses and promotes a sense of belonging. In support of this

conclusion, the Harvard Business Review published an article detailing how maximizing the value of a

target audience relies on building an emotional connection (Zorfas & Leemon, 2016). Zorfas and Leemon

say that emotional connection can be established by tapping into certain human motivators, like “stand

out from the crowd” and “enjoy a sense of belonging” (Zorfas & Leemon, 2016). Those are two examples

that best apply to higher education institutions, and given the prior analysis, UA has done a better job at

tapping into those two motivators. Through urging students to engage in conversation in their posts,

posting less text-based content, and utilizing the ‘story’ feature far more frequently, UA’s social media

strives to create a climate of togetherness and collaboration.

ASU has a huge potential to increase their engagement. As previously mentioned, they have a

large, international presence and following on social media due to their university’s high standing. They

also have a high enrollment rate, leading to a large group of current and alumni students to follow their

pages. However, ASU is failing in the execution of their social media strategy. In order to succeed on the
same, if not higher basis of their competitor UA, ASU needs to decrease their posting frequency and post

more student-life related content instead of infographics.

The posting frequency of ASU is currently five posts per week on Instagram and two posts per

day on Facebook. Even if ASU is asking for a call to action on nearly every post and includes interesting

information, the amount of content you are putting out will tire out your audience. This high frequency

is leading to follower fatigue. ASU’s target audience, students ranging from the ages of 18-24, already

pick and choose which posts to like, comment on, or share. If ASU gives their audience more content,

then publics will not only have to choose between their engagement with either ASU or their favorite

celebrity, but also choose between which ASU posts to engage with if at all. Additionally, creating more

than 3 posts a week on Instagram and one post a day on Facebook can lead to an overload of material

and an inconsistency in the quality of content. ASU’s goal should be to pull in their audience and not

push out their content. By limiting their frequency they will ensure the posts that do get published will

have a higher quality and have a higher engagement.

This ties directly into the second point of potential: less graphics and more student life. As

mentioned in the analysis, ASU posts a great number of graphics which are well curated but receive

almost 1,000 less impressions than a post of their campus or students would. ASU’s target audience is

not interested in the university’s schematics of a new building- they want to see pictures in order to

imagine themselves on that campus. Pictures of the mascot are fun, pictures of the campus are beautiful

and create pride, pictures of students create belonging. But a quote does not inspire any of these

feelings. By decreasing the graphic content in their posts and focusing on high-quality photographic

content ASU will be able to increase likes and comments. If improved post content is combined with the

lower frequency and their already good following-rate ASU has the potential to achieve the same or

higher engagement that their competitors currently enjoy.

 References

Arizona State University. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2022 from Arizona State University:

https://www.asu.edu/

Arizona State University- Tempe. (2019). Retrieved January 28, 2022 from Data USA:

https://datausa.io/profile/university/arizona-state-university-tempe#:~:text=The%20enrolled%2

0student%20population%20at,Hawaiian%20or%20Other%20Pacific%20Islanders

Zorfas A., Leemon D. (24. April 2017). An Emotional Connection Matters more than Customer

Satisfaction. Retrieved January 28, 2022 from Harvard Business Review:

https://hbr.org/2016/08/an-emotional-connection-matters-more-than-customer-satisfaction

Rival IQ Facebook Head-to-Head Snapshot. (2019, November 06). Retrieved January 24, 2020, from

https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/report/

Rival IQ Instagram Head-to-Head Snapshot. (2019, November 06). Retrieved January 24, 2020, from

https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/report/

University of Arizona. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2022 from University of Arizona:

https://www.arizona.edu