Social media presence and engagement performance of University Libraries in Türkiye

Social media have become central to how academic libraries communicate with users, yet systematic evidence on their use in Türkiye remains limited. This study provides a comparative, census-based analysis of the social media presence and engagement performance of university libraries in Türkiye. A complete enumeration of 207 university libraries (129 state, 78 foundation) was examined across five platforms Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Data on platform presence, follower counts, posting frequency, and a follower-to-enrollment ratio were collected manually from official websites and accounts and analyzed descriptively. Instagram was the most widely adopted platform (64.7%), followed by Facebook (46.9%), X (39.1%), YouTube (26.1%), and LinkedIn (10.6%). Foundation university libraries achieved higher enrollment-normalized reach, particularly on Instagram and LinkedIn, whereas several large state university libraries combined high absolute follower counts with low per-student reach. Content production varied markedly, with intensely active accounts coexisting with many dormant ones. The findings indicate that, although presence has grown over the past decade, opening an account differs sharply from managing it as a sustained, purposeful communication channel. By foregrounding the follower-to-enrollment ratio as a normalized indicator, the study offers one of the first comprehensive, comparative assessments of academic-library social media in Türkiye.