USU's Huntsman School Ranked in Top 25 in the United States in Social Media

The business organization Online MBA Page.com has ranked the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University as one of the top 25 schools in the country in social media activity.

The organization, which is a “social education community,” released the “Top 100 Most Social Media Friendly MBA School Rankings for 2013” and listed Huntsman’s social media efforts at #25, tied with Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, which is ranked #24.

The publication measured social media impact in five categories: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google Plus. In the Twitter category the Huntsman School of Business was ranked #7 overall, with 9,119 followers. The school’s YouTube channel was ranked #21.

The top three schools overall were Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Harvard Business School and The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. The only other Utah MBA program to make the list was the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah that ranked #74.

Eric Schulz, senior lecturer and co-director of strategic marketing and brand management, oversees the school’s social media efforts.

“We’ve had a number of very innovative students who have assisted in our efforts and helped to get us on the social media map by paying attention to what interests our students,” Schulz said. “They’ve helped us build a vibrant and engaged online community of students, alumni and friends. There is always something going on, and we have a very active student body.”

Schulz said that the school encourages its students to “own their own education,” and said for many of them a key part of doing that is staying connected online.

“One metric the study didn’t count is that we have more than 3,000 students involved with our Huntsman School texting program, a key way we keep students informed of career information sessions, internship opportunities and interesting speakers visiting the business school,” he said.

It’s not the first time the Huntsman School of Business has been recognized for its social media efforts. Sterling Morris, who graduated in May of 2012 with a master's in management information systems (MIS), was a key architect in getting the school’s social media efforts off the ground. He did a study last year [2012] comparing the social media efforts of accredited business schools. The results were published in the November/December 2012 issue of BizEd Magazine, a publication that is distributed globally to business school deans, administrators, industry partners and business professionals. That study found that in April 2012, the Huntsman School ranked 8th in Twitter followers, 15th in Facebook followers and 29th in YouTube views.

“Sterling got us off to a great start, and Jeremiah Graves and Kyle Oakeson have been continuing that work last year and this year,” Schulz said. “If we are going to effectively communicate with our students we have to be paying attention to where they get their information. Sterling, Jeremiah and Kyle have helped us do that.”

The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University seeks to inspire and equip students to become innovative, ethical leaders with refined analytical skills that will help them understand and succeed in the global marketplace. The Huntsman School of Business is one of eight colleges at USU, located in northern Utah. More information on the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business may be found on the web.

Contact and Writer: Steve Eaton, 435-797-8640, steve.eaton@usu.edu