Communication Audit

The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences is

currently on Twitter and Facebook. There is a good solid foundation of
posts and content with a creditable profile for both platforms.
Facebook
Its Facebook has 2,658 likes for its page and posts an average of
14 times a month, which may be skewed due to a heavy concentration
of posts in November and December. In Nov. 2014 there were 35 posts
in Dec. 2014 there were 38 posts. In Nov. 2015 there were 21 posts
and in Dec. 2015 there were 18 posts, combined this averages to 28
posts per month in Nov. And Dec. This number drops off to an average
of 7 times a month from Jan. to Oct. A majority of the posts, at 23
percent, revolve around Alumni including, events, CMNS mentions,
media mentions and research. The second highest topic posted about
would be events at 21percent. This does have some overlap with the
alumni group. Third highest is about the college at 18 percent this
includes programs, news and announcements. Other topics included
faculty research ad mentions, student mentions, university news, fun
facts and Odyssey.
There have been a total of 194 posts from November 2014 to
December 2015. The highest amount of likes on a post is 152, which
was for a spring commencement album. This post also had the highest
amount of people reached at 16,232 people. The highest amount of

comments was 28 for voting to name the college ice cream challenge.
The highest amount of shares was for the recitation of Pi on pi day.
The weekday that is most frequently posted on is Friday with 39 out of
194 posts posted on a Friday. This is followed by Monday and Thursday
with 37 out of 194 posts.
CMNS has boosted 26 out of 182 eligible posts to be boosted;
this excludes some albums, which were not available for boost. In the
top five percent of post four out of nine were boosted, meaning they
achieved a high amount of likes, shares, comments or reached a large
amount of people. A majority of
The CMNS Facebook page seems to be news oriented. Its main
function appears to be disseminating information on events, faculty,
alumni and students, instead of creating a dialogue or engaging its
audience.
Twitter
The CMNS Twitter page has 212 likes and 971 followers. As of
Dec. 2015 it had a total of 1,274 tweets not including retweets. It
tweets approximately 80 times a month with a considerably even
distribution. The lowest amount tweeted was 37 tweets in Dec. 2015.
The highest amount tweeted in a month was 139 tweets in Nov. 2015.
The aspects that determined a successful tweet were impressions
(number of times people saw the tweet on twitter), engagements (total

number of times a user interacted with the tweet) and engagement

rate (engagements dived by the number of impressions).
The tweet with the highest engagement rate was @MCPS Were
proud to recognize 6 of your high schools in our top 10 Source Schools
for @UMDscience undergrads. The tweet with the most impressions
was Strychalski: @DARPA projects need to remain goal-driven. Good
science is not enough if work strays from proposed aims. #biosciumd
and the twwt with the highest enagment was Profile of @oculus CEO
@brendaniribe in Odyssey mag - look for it tomorrow!
http://t.co/PWnI7kHbZC, which had the most amount of URL clicks at
275 clicks. In terms of visual approximately 23 percent of CMNSs
tweets were video or photo.
An interesting thing to note in terms of engagement would be
the tweet with the highest amount of retweets was Follow us for cool
#science from the @UofMaryland College of Computer, Mathematical,
and Natural Sciences. Pls RT!, suggesting that this audience will
retweet if asked to do so. Also the number of likes for twitter remains
relatively low compared to other numbers. The highest amount of likes
on a tweet was 35 for While we think our conscious mind experiences
reality, it doesn't interact w/ reality at all. ~Michael Abrash @oculus
http://t.co/4gklsY5QmY.

The weekday that is most frequently posted on out of the top five
percent of tweets is Wednesday. The most frequent time posted is 11
a.m.
In terms of audience 53 percent of our followers are male and 47
percent female. Currently we are gaining around one new follower a
day with a total of 983 followers.
Twitter seems to have the same purpose and goals as Facebook.
With news events but does ask for more engagement with its
audience. The language varies more than Facebook with quotes,
hashtags and visuals.

Recommendations
After completing an audit of the current social media practices for
CMNS and researching more strategies to boost reach and engagement
of social media I have several recommendations for the organization.
First I would recommend implementing a calendar system to
keep track of special event days and the corresponding social media
content as well as optimal posting times. This ensures each event is
thoroughly covered by the social media platforms and nothing is
posted at the last minute. By creating an excel sheet or using a
platform such as Hootsuite one would be able to generate a steady

supply of posts in advance for regular week days as well. In Table A

and Table B there are the recommended posting times for Facebook
and Twitter according to CoSchedule, which compiled the latest studies
from a variety of sources including Pew. Posts could be organized and
scheduled out weeks in advanced, which will provide audiences with
enough information to provide useful without being overwhelming.
My second recommendation is to provide weekly or series posts
for its audience. This strategy creates anticipation for its audience. If
the weekly segment is successful then it has the capability to attract a
bigger audience. It could start with traditional social media series like
throw back Thursdays or create its own like Family Fridays, which
showcase parents who work on campus and their children. Another
example could be why Wednesday in which CMNS asks students or
faculty members why they love their major, field or CMNS. Or the
college could develop a tip of the week in which the share advice to
prospective students or high schools, professional advice for current
students, life hacks using science, ect.
My third suggestion is to diversify the content of the posts.
Experiment with different types of content such as introducing top
fives of articles researchers, jobs or scholarships. Include more
graphics rather than pictures, using quotes, or get a behind the scene
point of view which could include what the dean is doing, what
students are doing in classrooms or faculty are doing in labs. This

keeps the audience interested and introduces them to new aspects of

CMNS. One of the highest rated posts was a video, so I would also
suggest attempting to make new interesting videos highlighting
students or faculty.
My last suggestion is to keep track of the metrics to allow growth
and development. This will allow for a comparison to see if the
recommendations are well received or need revision. The audit
conducted lays the foundations for developing a system, but it is my
recommendation that information is continually added to the
spreadsheets and documents organized in a social media folder. This
folder can be passed down from intern to intern to continually improve
and support CMNSs social media efforts.
I have included a list of recommended and discouraged Twitter
habits (Chart C) from my research efforts to boost following numbers
for an organization or business, which can be found in the appendix.

Appendix
Table A

Answer:
The best times to post on Facebook are 14 p.m. late into the
week and on weekends.
o Saturday and Sunday at 121 p.m.
o Thursday and Friday at 14 p.m.
o Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Table B

Answer:

The optimal times to tweet are 123 p.m., with a peak best time
at 5 p.m. During the workweek is the best, though some niches
might have more active audiences on the weekend.
o Wednesday at noon and 56 p.m.
o MondayFriday at 123 p.m. and 5 p.m.
o Experiment with 23 a.m., 67 a.m., and 910 p.m.

Chart C

1. Number of connections in-common with potential new followers

(good)
2. High frequency of others retweeting your tweets (good)
3. High frequency of informational tweets (good)
4. Too many "broadcast" tweets not directed at anyone in particular
(bad)
5. Too much negative sentiment in your tweets (bad)
6. A detailed profile description or "bio" (good)
7. Profile has a URL listed (good)
8. "Burstiness" of your tweets, or the peak rate of tweets-per-hour
(more is good)
9. High ratio of followers to following (good)
10. Lots of tweets with positive sentiment (good)
11. Cramming too many useless hashtags into your tweets (bad)
12. Use of long, fancy words (good)
13. Your tendency to follow-back those who follow you (good)
14. Profile lists your location (good)

References
Neidlinger, J. (2015).What 10 Studies Say About The Best Times To
Post On Social Media. Coschedule. Retrieved from
http://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/
Sonderman, J. (2013). Sciences revals waht really increases Twitter
followers. Poynter. Retrived from
http://www.poynter.org/2013/science-reveals-what-reallyincreases-twitter-followers/205411/