Twitter  announces its follower ranking for Australian university corporate accounts.  Rounded to the nearest thousand, as of this month they are:

Over 30 000 followers

UniMelb – 86 000, UoQ – 80 000, Monash U – 62 000, UniSydney – 62 000, Deakin U – 50 000, UniAdelaide – 48 000, RMIT – 47 000, UNSW – 43 000, UniSA – 37 000, Curtin U – 33 000, LaTrobe U – 31 000

Middle-rank

Swinburne U -29 000, Griffith U –  29 000, Macquarie U – 28 000, Flinders U – 27 000, QUT – 21 000, Victoria U 17 000, ANU – 16 000, UWA – 15 000, Murdoch U – 14 000, James Cook U – 14 000, UniWollongong – 13 000, UniCanberra – 13 000, UTS – 12 000, Bond U – 12 000, Charles Sturt U – 12 000, UTas – 11 000

Fewer followers

Charles Darwin – 8 000, Western Sydney U – 8000, Edith Cowan U – 7000, Federation U – 7000, UNE – 6000, CQU – 5000. UniSouthernQueensland – 5000, UniSunshineCoast – 4000, UniNotreDame – 1000, Torrens U – 1000, ACU – 1000.

Like any ranking unhappy people will have reasons why this is unrepresentative and proves nothing. Bur what it does demonstrate is that similar universities have very different numbers of followers – UNSW has half those of UniMelbourne. Macquarie U has twice the followers of UTS.

In social media, you are what you tweet.