University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Extension

Nicki Ragusa

1) Overview of the University of Illinois Extension

a) This research is focused on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Extension
and their work in the Cook County, or Chicagoland area. The University of Illinois
provides educational programs in all 102 counties of the state. The Extension program
focuses on five broad areas:
i) Energy and environmental stewardship
ii) Food safety and security
iii) Economic development and workforce preparedness
iv) Family health, financial security, and wellness
v) Youth development
b) The U of I Extension website has a feature for users to filter a specific county of the state
they are looking for so they can view upcoming events and workshops. The events
taking place in the Chicago focus on community, economy, environment, food, and
health. A few examples of upcoming events include:
i) Make Education a Family Goal and Effective Communication at Home
ii) Anxious to Awesome
iii) How to Finance Higher Education
iv) From Middle School to High School
2) Marketing Strategies Used by the University of Illinois Extension
a) The U of I Extension program has a strong social media presence. On their website,
they list and include links to all the social media platforms they currently use. An
interesting point, their website claims, “Each month, U of I Extension web pages draw
more than 5 million page views, and people in more than 200 countries access
Extension’s web-based information”. One may assume this could be due to their strong
marketing strategy.
b) Facebook
i) The U of I Extension Facebook page boasts over 15,000 page likes and just over
16,000 page follows. The page has a lot of recent activity and they post a variety of
topics, such as healthy recipes, horticulture, and reminders for upcoming events. The
U of I Extension Facebook seems to post daily, if not two to three times a day to stay
relevant on followers’ timelines.
c) Twitter
i) The U of I Extension Twitter page has of following of 3,624 people and nearly 10,00
tweets. The tweets focus mostly on agriculture topics. The Twitter account is not as
active as the Facebook page; they seem to only tweet or retweet about every other
day. There also seems to be a lack of communication between followers on their
Twitter account. One of the great things about Twitter is the ability to quickly respond
or interact with other accounts. By increasing responsiveness on Twitter, they could
potentially increase followers and ultimately inform more people about Extension.
d) YouTube
i) The U of I Extension program has a unique approach to YouTube. Rather than just
uploading videos that were previously recorded, they upload live webinars where
viewers can send in specific questions they have regarding the topic of the session.
Majority of the webinars focus on horticulture, with the exception of a few in financial
wellness. These webinars would be an effective because viewers can ask questions
in real time, as opposed to having to attend a workshop or event.
e) Instagram
 i) Their of U of I Extension Instagram shows the most lack of interaction from the
community. While the account posts nearly every day, most pictures do not have
more than 10 likes. And while the posts are the same as the ones on Facebook, they
do not receive the same amount of interaction. Extension Instagram only has about
744 followers. The reason the Instagram does not have the same level of interaction
as Facebook is because of the demographic differences. The older generations who
would be interested in potentially contacting Extension are more prone to use
Facebook over Instagram. Facebook also has direct links on posts, while Instagram
requires you to manually copy and paste the url to the Internet. This makes
Facebook more efficient and savers users time.
f) Pinterest
i) U of I Extension’s Pinterest has a following of over 33,000, and they have many
types of boards ranging in a variety of topics. Most of the pins on their boards are
bright infographics on topics like gardening, recipes, child development, financial
wellness, exercise, and many more. These pins are not only helpful to those who
follow U of I Extension, but also people who do not live near Illinois who just happen
to see the pins on their timeline.
3) University of Missouri Extension Comparison
a) Mu Extension’s Facebook and Twitter account are very comparable to U of I’s accounts.
Mu’s Facebook shows the most activity and interaction from the community, as does U
of I’s. Extension programs should focus most of their social media marketing in
Facebook because people who are interested in Extension programs, are going to turn
to Facebook first because it is most likely, the only social media accounts they have.
Their Instagram accounts are also very comparable. To potentially increase traffic on
their pages, they can switch to business account mode. To activate a business account
setting, one can simply turn it on in the settings section of the app, and you can turn it off
at any point. By becoming a business account, you can take a closer look at the
demographics of accounts that look at your page, and you can also advertise your
account for free so it appears on other people’s timelines. Switching to a business
account is very easy way to begin building a larger following on Instagram. Though
Mizzou has links to their social media accounts on their website, they do not have their
YouTube account linked. After manually finding their YouTube account, it appears to be
making in effort in posting more videos. There appeared to be a large gap in the videos
from about seven months ago. To increase awareness about the Youtube, Mu Extension
should add a link next to other social media icons so viewers can easily click to it, rather
than finding it themselves.