Bona's Big Twitter Presence

Venturing Outside the Bona Bubble

During this past month tweets from die-hard Bonnies fans have blown up my twitter feed. With both the men’s and women’s teams defying expectations and reaching the NCAA tournament, Bonnies fans have rallied to show their support in 140 characters or less. Everyday countless new tweets about St. Bonaventure University’s basketball programs and March Madness have accounted for just about every other tweet on my feed. Reading all of these tweets always fill my soul to the brim with Bona Pride. For such a small school to have so many supporters is amazing, and that support is what inspired me to blog about the realization that tiny St. Bonaventure University has a huge Twitter presence, outperforming larger schools in the twitterverse.

Type “St. Bonaventure University” into the search bar on Twitter and you’ll be amazed to see how many tweets and people results are shown. Many campus organizations have Twitter accounts with hundreds, if not thousands, of followers. For the consideration of the amount of space I have and the amount of time I can keep readers interested, I decided to focus on four of our proud university’s associated accounts: St. Bonaventure U, St. Bonaventure Athletics, SBU JMC, and Bona’s Notice Board.

Little School, Lots of Tweets

To start out, I decided to take a look at arguably the most important of Bonaventure’s Twitter accounts. The University has a general account under the handle @StBonaventure. With the account having over 2,400 followers, following almost 2,000, and over 4,100 tweets, this account is pretty impressive. St. Bonaventure uses their Twitter presence to update students, alumni, and other interested followers on general information about events around campus. The tone is casual and conversational, not boring and formal. Also, whoever runs the account made the smart move to follow back many people (including myself). Everyone loves to be followed, and this way the account can stay up-to-date on student opinions and interact with the Bonaventure community.

Tweet Bonnies, Tweet Bonnies, Tweet

Moving on to what could also be argued as the most important Bonaventure Twitter account by die-hard Bonnies fans, the athletic department has their own Twitter handle: @Go_Bonnies. This account almost overshadows St. Bonaventure’s general account with over 8,000 tweets and over 3,000 followers, but falls short by only following about 250 tweeters. @Go_Bonnies provides coverage of not just the basketball teams, but all of St. Bonaventure’s Division One sports programs. The account provides coverage and live tweeting of games for people who are unable to watch. The account also provides pictures and videos of the Bonnies at their finest.

J-School Goes Viral

The newest addition on my list of prominent Bonaventure Twitter accounts is the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The journalism school has just started tweeting this semester, but has been relatively successful. Like the @StBonaventure account, @SBU_JMC made the smart move to follow back students and followers. For being a specialized Twitter focusing just on journalism/ mass communication majors, the JMC account has gained a good sized following in a few short months with over 250 followers, over 240 following, and just over 230 tweets. This Twitter account focuses primarily on the Journalism School events and opportunities for journalism/ mass communication majors. The account promotes interaction with other tweeters, and gives little blips about opportunities and stating that if students want more information they are welcome to direct message or tweet at the account and can expect a quick response. Like @Go_Bonnies, @SBU_JMC also has started live tweeting from events; most recently the account tweeted from the Woman of Promise Award. The tone is also conversational, with tweets about basketball or other campus events sprinkled into the mix.

           

Actually Noticing the Notice Board

Maybe it’s different for other people’s group of friends, but for me and mine its common knowledge that our emailed Notice Boards get a quick glance and deleted, leaving us in the dark about important events. Well, someone else must’ve noticed this and created a pretty inventive way to gain more student attention. Bona’s Notice Board has a Twitter account under the handle @BonasNotice and diligently notifies their over 280 followers. The Notice Board Twitter also follows over 260 tweeters and has tweeted more than 1,000 times. The account is frequently updated with the latest Bona’s news. I can personally say that their tweets are much more reader friendly than the emails. The information is provided in a quick summary of the information or event with a link to more information if you want it. This way students and faculty don’t have to scroll through what seems like endless information to get to what they really want. Everything is short and sweet.

It’s true that St. Bonaventure University is known as a small school in the middle of nowhere. However, looking at Twitter you’d get a completely different impression of our school. We may be small in the real world, but in the digital space we have an impressive presence.