Harvard University Facebook Page Reaches 500,000 Fans

Harvard, who prides itself as one of the top universities in the world, can now add another first place to its trophy case. On Wednesday, the Harvard University Facebook page reached 500,000 fans—the most number of fans for any university's Facebook page, according to All Facebook's leaderboards under "Education" and "University."

In response to the milestone, the University posted a comment on its wall that varied from its usual news posts:

"Over half a million of you 'Like' this page! We'd like to thank all of you who have been following us here on Facebook for updates on teaching, research, life & learning at Harvard in Cambridge and around the world."

The page, which was launched in June 2009, was part of a number of steps the University took in making Harvard accessible on the social media front. Since then, Harvard has become a partner of YouTube EDU and iTunes U as well as developed a presence on Twitter and Foursquare. In the fall of 2010, the University launched the Harvard mobile application under the direction of Perry S. Hewitt '87-'88, director of digital communications and communications services.

"Accessibility to Harvard is something that President Faust frequently talks about—and one of the most effective ways to increase accessibility is developing a content strategy that makes best use of digital, social and mobile approaches," Hewitt wrote in an email.