Genna Mickey

Dr. Gao
LIS 745
June 11, 2013
Dominican University Social Media Findings
In order to identify how Dominican University is being discussed online, I first used
Dominicans directory of social media accounts which is found on the bottom of the dom.edu
homepage and says Social Media: http://public.dom.edu/news-events/socialmedia. This
webpage lists every Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Pinterest, Google Plus, Foursquare,
Youtube, Flickr, and Instragram account that the University owns and manages. It is helpful to
know the account names first in order to further explore how users interact with these accounts.
Twitter
Dominican University has 12 Twitter accounts moderated by different departments of the
University. The most active is the main University account, @DominicanU. Using Twitters
Advanced Search, I found the following tweets during the month of May that talked about
Dominican University or its students.
Cary Thereon @care82222 May
It is official, I'm a college graduate! #college #graduate #dugrad2013 #official
http://instagram.com/p/ZoDkaVSE6h/
felice maciejewski @felicemac4 May
Just finished #DU undergrad commencement! Fabulous and awesome DU students!
felice maciejewski @felicemac8 May
#DU Community garden is all planted and ready to grow! We had a fabulous planting day
yesterday. pic.twitter.com/TppiL6v7Qs
felice maciejewski @felicemac8 May
Mickey 2

#DU Gardeners worked hard yesterday putting together trellises and cages. Lots of veggies and
herbs were planted. pic.twitter.com/VTc6lxFXnX
felice maciejewski @felicemac8 May
@DominicanU We know how to compost. pic.twitter.com/tirDhTG0St
felice maciejewski @felicemac8 May
@DominicanU students know how to work in an organic community garden!
pic.twitter.com/AMmfFtX3nY
felice maciejewski @felicemac8 May
@DominicanU The Priory's a perfect place for planting cucumbers.
pic.twitter.com/A5QFLMYoAk
@rickykluge: #chicago #dominican #university #epic #college #spring #ivy
http://instagram.com/p/ZV-ZqlSv1u/ May 16
@catherinederose: I have officially been accepted into the Legal Studies Program
@DominicanU! http://instagram.com/p/ZDrbgqIpSX/ may 9
eelee @AlyseterBunny4 May
To everyone @DominicanU: May the 4th be with us as we graduate today :) #DUgrad2013
@JohnHannes: Happy Candle&Rose, to the @DominicanU class of 2013!!! #Caritas #Veritas
#DUgrad2013 #fb May 3
@rcasdu: What a beautiful #CandleAndRose ceremony! We all #Love this tradition!
#DUgrad2013 @RCASdu http://fb.me/1G9fDgOAW may 3
ork ucchi @YZP27 May
@DominicanU great meeting your BSB MBA students in South Africa this morning. Very
engaging chat about entrepreneurship in Africa
reenline heels 3C @glwop11 May
Great Work to our friends from the @DominicanU Community Leadership Program for what
they did for this daycare! http://ow.ly/kVRGg
uadalupe @lupitah13020129 May
Mickey 3

High school is finally over(: which means college is around the corner <3. Dominican University
:)
I was unable to locate negative tweets about Dominican University, but instead found 15
positive tweets about the school related to graduation, being accepted to the school, community
events that students participated in, and an entrepreneurs visit to MBA students. These tweets
came from current students, recently accepted students, a librarian at the Rebecca Crown library,
a local bike store, and an entrepreneur. I felt there was a very positive presence about the school
seeing these results.
Facebook
By searching through the different Facebook accounts that Dominican University
manages, I noticed that many were not posting actively, and therefore, users were not interacting
or posting on the Facebook page. The main account had the most activity and was also
consistently updated, with an average of 3 posts per day. Nine days of the month did not have
any posts. I calculated the amount of likes that Dominicans Facebook page received each day,
and below are the results:

0
50
100
150
200
250
Total Number of Likes in May 2013 by Day
Total Number of Likes
Mickey 4

There was a spike in Facebook likes around the beginning of the month when Dominican
had its Candle and Rose Ceremony on May 3, and Graduation Ceremony on May 4. Many
people liked the photo albums that were associated with these days as well. Overall from the
comments on the Facebook page, they were positive comments. Also, there was an interactive
wall post in which the moderator asked a question about a photograph, encouraging others to
share, and that post received a lot of comments. I drew the conclusion from the Facebook page
that users like to comment and like posts that are more visual (a photograph or album) or that ask
a question that they are encouraged to respond to.
Overall there are 5,514 Facebook followers for the Dominican Homepage, but for the
whole month of May, there were 947 likes. This means that less than 20% of the followers are
interacting with the school.
Other Social Media Accounts
Dominican Universitys Flickr account has a handful of photos posted during the month
of May. However, there is no interaction with these photos because Dominican has disabled
commenting. Also I noticed that there isnt any consistency between the photos posted on
Facebook versus the photos posted on Flickr. For instance, there were community service project
photos posted on Flickr but not on Facebook. The graduation photos were posted to Facebook
but not Flickr.
Over on the Dominican Universitys Instagram account, three photographs were posted
during the month of May, in total receiving 31 likes. The account has a modest 67 followers,
which is a high ratio of likes almost half of their followers saw these 3 photos and liked them.
Mickey 5

Dominicans Pinterest account has a good number of boards, but there is not a lot of
interaction on the pins. The account doesnt seem to be updated either. Although you can not tell
dates on Pinterest, I can see in an album marked raduation there are notes indicating it was
2012 graduates, so this Pinterest account doesnt seem to be updated enough. I was not able to
find if any pins were repined or liked during the month of May. The account has 401 followers,
so Dominican may want to consider being more active on this site. Especially since on the
Facebook page, there were more spikes in likes and interaction when photos were posted. If
Dominican were to post more onto Pinterest, I think it would get a lot of exposure since social
media users seem to be more visual.
Both the Foursquare and YouTube accounts were out of date, with no activity on the
pages during the month of May. The last YouTube video was posted 14 months ago, and had no
likes. The YouTube Channel has 80 subscribers. On the Dominican Foursquare page, they have
90 followers but only 1 person has ever checked into the school. It appears that the account was
created in 2011. It appears that not many people want to check in at Dominican. Perhaps if they
had some kind of incentive on this page like a promotional prize, free tickets to a Dominican
show, etc., then more people would check in and be more interactive with the page.
On the Google Plus account of Dominican University, there is only one post for May, and
no one liked or +1 this post. The account has 92 followers total.
Here is a comparison chart of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Foursquare
accounts. It shows how many followers they have, but also how many likes they received on the
pages during the month of May.
Mickey 6


Overall, the highest percentage of likes to followers was on Instagram, with almost half
of the followers liking the photos. Only 20% of Facebook users liked facebook posts, and
Twitter had a very small percentage, though it is hard to gage the full interaction of Twitter due
to the many abbreviations and references to the school that can not all be tracked down. If I were
to recommend to Dominican how to get others to discuss Dominican more on social media, I
would recommend the following: 1. Become more active on Pinterest, 2. Post more photos to
Instagram and trying to get more followers 3. Post more photos and ask more questions on
Facebook to encourage more interactions.



0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Followers Per Account Vs. # of Interactions in
May 2013
Likes
Followers
Mickey 7

Evaluation of Social Media Search Engines
What I discovered from searching using the websites we learned in class is that there are
not a lot of people talking about Dominican University. The Social Mention website returns
nothing for May by searching Dominican university il or Dominican university river forest
il. hen searching Dominican University there are 207 mentions, but they are all mostly about
Dominican University in California. Searching Dominican university california ohio does
bring up Dominican in River Forest but nothing in May. The analysis is that there is 46%
passion by the school, and a 19% reach. For sentiment, there are 30 positive, 80 neutral, and 1
negative. I found this to be fairly accurate with the data I encountered across Dominicans
platforms not very much negativity, and not very much reach.
The WhosTalkin Website did not pull up any results for Dominican University. I thought
this was very odd. It pulled up many results for Dominican, but this is ineffective to actually find
our school. I was not impressed with this websites search power.
Using oogle, I used the search term: dominican university -california -ohio -
site:dom.edu. More Dominican websites were found with this search like the Dominican
athletics department, the twitter account, the school library media program, etc. Two results
came up in the top 5 results but did not have anything posted during the month of May: Yelp and
Hacklibschool.wordpress.com. Yelp is a review site and Hack Lib School is a personal blog
which had posted information on Dominican in 2011.
I also used Wolfram Alpha to search for Dominican, and it pulled up a general profile
about the school with numerical data about degrees, tuition, and student enrollment, but it did not
provide links to information about what others are saying about the school. Because no one is
really talking much about the school.
Mickey 8

Overall, my opinion is that Dominican doesnt have a lot of people discussing the school
outside of Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has the highest number of followers but not a high
level of interaction. If Dominican wants to have more people interacting with the school and
talking about the school, they should post more visual images and photos via Facebook,
Pinterest, and Instagram.