Canadians are heading back to school with Twitter this fall

Over 1.7 million students attended Canadian universities during the 2017/2018 school year (according to Universities Canada) with many using Twitter to join the conversation about what’s happening on campuses across Canada.

Students will once again returning to Canadian classrooms in the coming weeks. During the school year and beyond, Twitter will be at the head of the class, providing real-time conversations and content about Canada’s academic community.

For first year and returning students, Twitter conversations about orientation week can be a valuable resource for information and interaction with fellow students, alumni and staff. Over the past three years, Kingston’s Queen’s University (@queensu) was the most mentioned Canadian university in Tweets about orientation or “Frosh Week”.  

Here are the five most-mentioned Canadian schools on that list:

1. Queen’s University (@queensu)
2. Western University (@westernu)
3. McMaster University (@mcmasteru)
4. Carleton University (@carleton_u)
5. Memorial University (@MemorialU)

A deeper dive into Twitter data reveals which schools have been most active and most topical with Twitter users in recent months. Montreal’s McGill University (@mcgillu) enters the new school year as the most followed university in Canada and the only school with more than 100,000 Twitter followers.

Here are the five most followed schools in Canada:

1. McGill University (@McGillU)
2. University of Waterloo (@Uwaterloo)
3. University of Alberta (@Ualberta)
4. Western University (@westernu)
5. Concordia University (@Concordia)

While not amongst the most followed, University of Toronto (@uoft) is notable as the most mentioned university account in Canada for 2018. Between January 1, 2018 and July 31, 2018, @uoft had 1.5x more mentions than fellow Toronto institution York University (@yorkuniversity) and is amongst the 10 most followed schools in Canada.

Here are the 10 most mentioned Canadian university accounts on Twitter in 2018:

1. University of Toronto (@uoft)
2. York University (@yorkuniversity)
3. University of British Columbia (@UBC)
4. University of Alberta (@UAlberta)
5. McGill University (@mcgillu)
6. Ryerson University (@ryersonu)
7. University of Calgary (@UCalgary)
8. Western University (@westernu)
9. University of Waterloo (@UWaterloo)
10. McMaster University (@mcmasteru)

@westernu had the most single-day mentions of any Canadian university in 2018 on January 12th when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) visited campus for a town hall event.

Canadian universities and key hashtags are also central to conversations about innovation, employment and politics on Twitter. Here are the most frequently-used news hashtags in Tweets about Canadian universities in 2018:

1. #cdnpoli
2. #yorkustrike
3. #AI

Canada turns to Twitter for back-to-school shopping

For students and others looking for a fresh start for fall, Twitter is home to robust conversations about back-to-school shopping that start well before Labour Day weekend.

In a recent survey of students and parents on Twitter who shop for back-to-school, 45% of respondents said they start thinking about back-to-school shopping in July or even earlier. In fact, 1 in 2 Twitter users turn to Twitter to discover back-to-school products.

Tech products are especially popular amongst this group with calculators, laptops and tablets ranking as the top three tech items that are top of mind for back-to -school shoppers on Twitter.

Follow this Twitter list from @univcan for the latest Tweets from Canadian universities and best of luck to all students and staff returning to campus this fall.