Oakland U's 'Klout' Nudges Higher After GOP Debate

If you live in Rochester and watched live network coverage of the Republican presidential candidates' debate last month at , you probably felt a little more than proud to hear the university — and your town — mentioned on a national broadcast.

But just how much did our university benefit from the national exposure?

The university compiled an analysis of news coverege and social media exposure from the GOP debate. Overall, the analysis showed that the university's Klout score increased from 45 to 50 after the debate. (Klout is a unit of measure from zero to 100 that looks at a person's or brand's influence on social media.)

In the days leading up to the Nov. 9 debate, OU President Gary Russi expressed his excitement about putting the university into a national spotlight.

So how did OU do?

Here's a look, by the numbers, at the exposure:

• 185: Number of local TV news stations across the country that mentioned Oakland University.
• 20,000: Number of news stories and blogs that mentioned the university.
• 3.3 million: Viewers who watched the debate live on CNBC.
• 46,417: Visits to university's GOP debate Web page on Nov. 9.
• 38 percent: Percentage of those visitors who were new.
• 42,922: For comparison, the number of visits to the OU website March 18, 2011, when the men's basketball played Texas in the NCAA tournament.
• 1,200: Page views of 10 videos posted by the university on YouTube on Nov. 9.
• 940: Number of tweets with the #debateOUhashtag in a 24-hour period surrounding the debate.
• 1,500: For comparison, number of tweets with the #CNBCdebatehashtag in same 24-hour period.

OU was also mentioned several television shows, including Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Jimmy Kimmel Live!