Social media is increasingly used in higher education settings by researchers, students and institutions. Whether it is researchers conversing with other researchers, or universities seeking to communicate to a wider audience, social media platforms serve as a tools for users to communicate and increase visibility. Scholarly communication in social media and investigations about social media metrics is of increasing interest for scientometric researchers, and to the emergence of altmetrics. Less understood is the role of organizational characteristics in garnering social media visibility, through for instance liking and following mechanisms. In this study we aim to contribute to the understanding of the effect of specific social media use by investigating higher education institutions’ presence on Twitter. We investigate the possible connections between followers on Twitter and the use of Twitter and the organizational characteristics of the HEIs. We find that HEIs’ social media visibility on Twitter are only partly explained by social media use and that organizational characteristics also play a role in garnering these followers. Although, there is an advantage in garnering followers for those first adopters of Twitter. These findings emphasize the importance of considering a range of factors to understand impact online for organizations and HEIs in particular.