Public Relations Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 312 public relations schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 272 public relations schools have some social media presence, having accounts on at least one of the three major social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Of the schools that have a social media presence, the greatest number, almost 97% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 63.8% of the 312 public relations schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 13.5% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Black (7.1%), blue (6.1%) and yellow (4.8%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on public relations school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest public relations schools in the nation, are as follows:

1. University of Central Florida: white 46% and black 1.6%
2. The University of Texas at Austin: white 9% and grey 4.4%
3. University of Florida: white 39% and grey 1.6%

Font

The largest number, nearly 47.1%, of public relations school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on public relations school websites include Verdana (17.3%) and Helvetica (9.6%).

The largest public relations school's websites use the following fonts:

1. University of Central Florida: Arial
2. The University of Texas at Austin: Bitstream Vera Sans
3. University of Florida: Trebuchet Ms

Social Presence

Exactly 212 public relations schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 201 YouTube channel subscribers. The public relations schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. Pennsylvania State University - Main Campus: 2,357 subscribers
2. University of Oregon: 2,253 subscribers
3. Auburn University: 2,016 subscribers

Exactly 240 public relations schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 2,705 Twitter account followers. The public relations schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Miami Ad School - Miami Beach: 23,734 followers
2. Texas A & M University - College Station: 19,518 followers
3. Auburn University: 17,795 followers

Web Metrics

Although all public relations schools have websites, only about 19% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 81.8% of public relations school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The public relations schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Northwest Missouri State University: 6,291 broken links
2. Vincennes University: 3,603 broken links
3. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University: 2,283 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on public relations school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The public relations school websites with the cleanest websites, i.e., least number of HTML and CSS validation errors are:

1. Drake University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. Hofstra University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Appalachian State University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The public relations school websites with the greatest number of HTML and CSS validation errors include:

1. Winthrop University: 365 HTML validation errors; 99 CSS validation errors
2. Metropolitan State University: 435 HTML validation errors; 5 CSS validation errors
3. University of Nebraska - Lincoln: 0 HTML validation errors; 420 CSS validation errors