DETROIT (8/28/13) - The University of Detroit Mercy's official athletic website, www.DetroitTitans.com, topped 1.5 million page views for the fourth consecutive year, with the recently completed athletic year (2012-13). The Titans' website has broken its annual traffic records in each of the last five years as Detroit's online brand continues to expand its audience.

Detroit's social media network also increased over the past year in record fashion. The Titans main Twitter page @detroittians made an 87 percent leap, from last year by gaining 1,038 followers, nearly doubling the total followers from 2012. Detroit's Facebook page Tommy Titan also saw an increase of 11 percent in Likes, while three weeks ago the Titans launched their first Instagram account @detroittitans, and have already gained more than 130 followers. Altogether the Titans social media network has seen growth by 47 percent, which is a new record.

"It is really nice to see every asset of the Titans' online brand grow," stated UDM Sports Information Director Jeremiah Hergott. "To have the website traffic increase by more than 200,000 page views in one year in addition to nearly doubling the number of followers in twitter shows that we are heading in the right direction."

Page views have become the standard measurement of popularity and traffic for websites.

"Each visitor might see one page then leave, or they may click on link after link viewing a variety of pages, videos and more," said Hergott. "Every page that a visitor sees is considered a page view. So we don't just want fans to visit our site and leave, but to stay and explore."

The Titans were also just one of three schools in the Horizon League that saw page view growth last season. Valparaiso led the way, while Milwaukee saw a significant decrease in visitors.

In 2008, UDM Athletics began an online technology partnership with SIDEARM Sports, one of the largest athletic website providers in the world that currently works with more than 680 collegiate sports properties. This partnership included the design, hosting and operations of detroittitans.com, along with video, social media and mobile technology. The result has been tremendous growth in the Titans' online brand over the last few years.

Titan fans can follow #DetroitsCollegeTeam on Twitter and Instagram at @DetroitTitans and remember to like the Titans on Facebook.