I’m here in Phoenix Arizona as a keynote speaker to the Council of Alumni Associations Executives, these are the fine folks that manage alumni orginizations where you may have gone to college. The reason I’ve been invited to speak as a professional speaker is their world, like many other industries, is being severely impacted by the social web.
All middlemen and aggregators are being impacted by social. Take for example, brokers, associations, sales people, classified listings, journalists, music labels, encyclopedias, and even analysts are feeling the threats of these simple –yet interruptive technologies.
Now, college grads may use social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with each other –without being part of fee based alumni organizations. Connecting directly to each other using a few mouse clicks, they can fuse lifelong bonds, help each other personally and professionally in near real time.
Yet, many savvy orgs have realized the opportunity. Altimeter Researcher, Christine Tran did research for my presentation and we found that some Alumni orgs like Stanford, Cal, Auburn, Purdue, and Brown are participating in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn with varying degrees of success.
I want to extend the conversation here online, and realized that a useful matrix would be very helpful in understanding the risks and opportunities that are abound in at least five different use cases, they are:
Impacts to Alumni Organizations In A World of Social Networks: Five Use Cases
| Use Case | Opportunities | Risk | Resources Needed |
| Do Nothing | Ignorance is bliss, at least for the short term. | Bypassed as alumns self connect rendering the org irrelevant. | An updated resume. |
| Use tools to talk to them | Try to lead the discussion, by using the same tools. See how Caltech alumni and Rhode Island School of Design John Maeda on Twitter does | Not saying anything of value to alumni members. | Part time staff and committed resources in a budget-stricken environment |
| Advocacy Program | Get existing alumni members to tell other non-members they should join through social tools, low cost marketing. Read my checklist. | Some may not want to evangelize, limited control of message | A formalized program, and a way to encourage behavior |
| Aggregation of members voices | Inexpensive way to create ongoing content and uplift existing members. See how Stanford does it | Limited message control, content may not all be signal | Aggregation tools either manually on blogs, or an automated one that requires dollar investment |
| Organize online and real world events | Facilitate an event that’s difficult for members to self-organize on own. | Members may seek to self-organize if costs are excessive. | Utilize existing social tools that offer events management: Facebook events |
For Alumni Organizations, Social Technologies Is Akin To Harnessing Fire
In the long run, it’s never a zero sum game. It’s rare we see industries completely collapse from disruptive technologies, as the savvy will adopt and create new business models increasing value. The opportunities are great for college alumni organizations, these same tools that threaten their existence can be used to increase membership through advocacy and word of mouth, reduce costs in organization, and a wealth of content being created by their own members.
Oh yeah, I’m pleased that I was recently featured by my alma mater, SFSU, go ‘Gaters.
If you’re a graduate from a college (or high school) and can think of opportunities how the Alumni organizations can benefit from social technologies –or you’ve already displaced them by connecting directly with your peers, please leave a comment below. Update: I met CalTech’s Andy Shaindlin, he writes a smart blog on this topic, also read Alumni Futures. Update part 2: He’s expanded the matrix.
Here are some of the best tweets I read from folks who were discussing this topic with me in Twitter
rahafharfoush: “@jowyang Yes. Facebook networks anyone? I didn't even know my uni HAD an alumni organization, I just found ppl on linked in and FB”
kaburo: “@jowyang isn't that what fb is for? Connecting directly w former classmates bypassing alumni. Planned trip to 10 yr reunion all on fb”
TyOlson: “@jowyang our recent high school reunion was organized via facebook… and had one of the highest attendance ratings the school sees”
JamieTimm: “@jowyang i bet it depends on the size of college and how far away the chapter is from the school…”
ResearchRocks: “@jowyang Yes. In fact when my undergrad school called recently asking me to buy a $75 alumni directory I nearly laughed
JoseParadis: ” @jowyang I'm doing that now. Connected with tons of alumni without the need to go through the organization (work & college).”
gregdelima: “@tomcunniff @jowyang I would have to agree. My brother doesn't even bother. And my parents use FB to keep in touch with former classmates.”
MidwivesGallery: “@jowyang I would haveyo say yes. I don't need to pay my alumni organization o connect with my friends I fbd on #FB and #twitter”
beckiparkhurst: “@jowyang I think so, but also think there is a need for college alums to organize events”
eCelebrating: ” @jowyang it's a double edged sword. closes distance gaps and finds missing alums easier, but may drop actual event attendance.”
sebcoss: “@jowyang for the moment it bolsters it – social still complements offline interaction – as our lives move more online that won't be the case”
Take a look at how Abilene Christian University used a combination of uStream, Twitter, and Facebook to provide an opportunity for alumni to interact with each other earlier this year. Just one of many examples of how they are using the social web to build and strengthen relationships with their alumni!
http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2009/08/26/acu-…
Thanks Brad, that's interesting, basically, they're becoming like a media organization.
Jeremiah, it's interesting that you bring up this topic because I now find myself out of retail and into a university setting.
Our alumni association is one of the strongest in the nation (Notre Dame) – though, I do think the school's policies create a strong alumni by having close ties to religion and the requirements of dorms (halls).
Embracing these technologies are crucial to keeping in touch and listening to the alumni. If your responsibility was to reach out with the alumni, which tools would you use first and how would you do it?
Personally, I would make sure the entire staff was highly connected online much like they are offline. Instead of getting content developers/reporters on alumni, I would make it the entire staff's job to be community organizers – definitely not marketers. But that's just my opinion.
Great blog, BTW. Been reading you for at least four years.
My alma mater, Franklin & Marshall Collelge, has joined the social media evolution. They are a small, liberal arts college in Lancaster, PA. They utilize Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with students and alumni. I enjoy following them on facebook as it provides the ability to see pictures of the campus, students and professors…reminding me of the emotional connection from long ago. It's great to get the updates on sports teams, weather impacts (they were buried in the mid-atlantic snow storm), educational forays. While there has been some use of social media for alumni fund raising, I'm glad that that is not all that they use it for!
The fact is that as you mention, a number of alumni associations are utilizing the social web to help facilitate the connections between alumni. For example, they're utilizing Facebook pages to develop grassroots support for their reunion events on campus. They're using Twitter to connect alumni not only with what the university is doing, but also with what their fellow alumni are doing. They're developing outposts on Linkedin where alumni can develop business connections easily.
I think that the social web makes connecting with your fellow alumni easier, and that's good for alumni associations, because that's what they're in the business of doing. If they can leverage these technologies the right way, they will be able to enhance the alumni experience, complementing some of the other things they do (i.e. the alumni magazine, the regional events, the clubs, etc.)
Thanks Don, I hope you read for another four and then some.
Doing Nothing will earn them nothing … rather being a part of this movement Alumni orgs can really hope to survive and MAY BE Yes pocket a few $$ too. Don't really know, if this is already done in the States and neither am I a Guru, but consider this —
a) Let's say a Bill Gates/Steve Jobs visits a campus for a guest lecture. Alumni orgs could hold video conf. fro those who cannot attend … Give the Target audience a glimpse of the video & may be even charge later
b) Share blogs/vblogs as you had mentioned earlier (wealth of content) in your post
c) Latest on upcoming Mgmt. programs
d) Alumni Orgs could also do a bit of Corporate Social Resp. by holding or arranging Charitable events … I know I may sound sick, but You earn valuable PR …
Great subject and needs immediate attention as school marcoms and alumni officials under severe stress due to social networks. Lots of positive change due to alumni connecting but but scale and pace of change force rapid responses by school officials that can feel chaotic.
I'm helping my high school manage their alumni social media as well as following efforts of some Columbia University graduate programs. Random comments issues:
> Social media data integration — no easy way right now for school to tie back members of a LinkedIn alumni group for example with their own database. So members who apply to are auto approved. Trolls possible but the assumption right now is that only actual alumni and parents are applying to join the group. Eventually institutions may want to confirm members are graduates or parents (or not — that's an issue to debate). Perhaps nets can add someting like twitters “verified” badge. Users would need to apply so school could confirm. Badge at least lets others in net know if they've been vetted by school.
> Lots of opportunity to highlight alumni twitter accounts and created generational links between grads and current students.
> LinkedIn directories of alumni — totally see that LinkedIn could help with a school branded “directory app” that replaces the typical school directory projects which are less accurate because they typically are done in 5 year cycles etc.
> Facebook — seems like everyone is swapping from groups to pages because pages are more customizable. But they're also more public. LinkedIn seems better suited to alumni orgs but FB's popularity and toolset mean it can't be ignored. Schools need better Facebook Connect options so that content can be on both school domain and facebook and crosslinked.
to be frank, the more i hear from my alumni assn about what they are doing via Twitter or Facebook, the more likely i am to give them money. i don't have the desire or time to read the alumni mags, but i do want to feel good about my alma mater.
thanks for using my tweet. I traveled from Europe back to the states to attend my 10 yr. A few of my intl friends came and this would not have happened 5 years earlier. Thanks to fb we were a lot closer and a lot more interested in going back for the reunion. But, I would agree with @beckiparkhurst – the alumni org organized the event after all. So they have a role. How to make best use of existing networks is the question.
two quick ideas on twitter integration to alumni networking:
1. register alums and create a twitter list that others can follow. it would be interesting to see what other alumni are doing as well as saying. additionally, it would make it far easier to respond to requests for information or assistance via twitter.
2. staff the university's twitter account and use it to make connctions between alums. for example, alumni A is looking for an IT company to handle his coldfusion web development and needs it done yesterday. alumni B runs a coldfusion company. university twitter account retweets alumni A to alumni B. this is obviously a better fit for smaller schools, but the added value would be phenomenal.
I wish Alumni associations could be transversal to social networks. I mean, most of the time when you connect with your former classmates is for either one of these two motives : having a beer or finding a job. In the end, I'm not sure those two conversations can mix very well… I think it explains why most Alumni associations maintain several spaces, e.g. one FB and one on LinkedIn or nother pro social networks.
Finally, as an alumn the only case in which I'd like to centralize my Alumni conversations would be for convenience issues, but I'd rather let them live separately in each one of their contexts.
Hope it helps,
Great discussion that shows how important it is for any organization/company/brand to utilize all communications channels to engage their constituents.
Providing value or establishing an emotional connection are equally core to keeping an audience opted in and engaged. As many of the examples state here show, alumni associations have a fairly unique opportunity to do both.
They just need to do it.
We all must also remember that ˜social™ does include in-person engagement. Again, alumni associations have many unique opps to do this well.
The beauty and strength of social media is that it allows anyone and everyone to participate in a shared conversation.
The trap I've seen organizations fall into is focusing too much on what they as an org are wanting to get out of participating, without focusing on what they have in their offer that is *truly* of value to their audience. Too often, these kinds of organizations jump right into tactics without thinking strategically about their audience's needs, wants and goals.
One of the big opportunities here is for alumni orgs to not only speak but to also listen. The social web offers avenues for this like no other.
My one suggestion for alum orgs: No matter what, make it a personal experience. People make connections to people much more easily than they do to a big faceless amorphous organization. Start with looking at the people it will take to reach your goals in social media, and move your resources (time & $$) there first before jumping right into picking technologies.
I really hope all this social web garbage doesn't replace the awkward phone call I get once a year from a current student asking me for money.
When Alumni Associations become more about connecting and communicating and less about raising money, THEN they will be able to *play* on the Web. If a follower on twitter only said hi when they wanted something, they'd be blocked. Focus on the relationships, not the dollar signs.
The best part of the phone call is hearing about the student's experiences on and around campus. How's Seville Quarter doing, is the E-house still the place to be, Prof. Groth still alive and kicking?.. Money somehow dirties the water, cheapens the conversation and places value on your earnings not your talents and interests.
Jeremy, this is great stuff and aligns with our work with alumni association strategic planning. However, we find that associations and other parts of higher ed, in a time of limited resources, often focus on the tactics without being smart about the efficient organizational design to carry out their goals sustainably, with impact, and along with other priorities. So social media is a terrific opportunity, but also a potential distraction, until the systems are strategically aligned — and with the resources to accomplish them. Looking forward to others' comments and experiences.
AAs have to redefine their value proposition to grads beginning with 'what does it mean to be a grad of our university?' as their value is no longer as the central switchboard. Occurs to me that no one really attends university to be a grad; so maybe the AA's future value is continuing to connect grads for the purposes that they entered the institution, not why they left it. Too way out?
Welcome to curious dynamics of Alumni Associations (AA) Jeremy! As one who lived on the both sides of the “fence”, I do think it all starts with a very basic question – what do your alumni want? Social Media should be a channel to efficiently meet alumni needs: by listening to alumni and communicating mechanisms to meet their needs. A FB post requesting solicitations for the Annual Fund is the same as phone call at dinner time requesting a pledge. Also, there is always the “danger” (at least a perception for AAs) that there will be “unofficial” social media presence, but the AA should not get officious about it and learn to participate in them also. The true measure is alumni interaction and loyalty that can lead to fostering long-term relationships between the institution and alumni and between alumni themselves.
I was very happy to see this post on the higher education sector.
IMHO, it is important that we don't think about this topic solely from the paradigm of the Alumni Office. It is important to think holistically about a student's relationship with the institution – instead of the “cradle to grave” paradigm of the business sector it becomes “application to endowment”. At the end of the day, the goal for everyone involved in higher education should be to build and sustain relationships and social media tools can make this happen.
Jeremiah, it was great to hear you address my profession's opportunities with social tech today, and to talk about the avenues available to us. As you suggested, savvy risk-takers will find a way to make their work relevant with the help of the new tools. It's just a question of how much each organization will lag behind our audience in effective deployment.
Also, thanks for the link to my alumni relations blog.
Thanks, I had a blast meeting some great folks. I realized this matrix and model can also apply to sports teams fans, music fan bases, and other member driven organizations.
Interesting.
What if universities built an ongoing relationship with grads using the social web –before doing a sales cold call? Would that increase your willingness to participate?
I thought of another use case, after giving my keynote.
Some Alumni programs have premium experiences (reserved benches at the game, meetings with players, even burial or memorial plots etc) that should extend to the social web as well.
Alumni programs should consider a private branded community for their top Alumni, and receive exclusive content, access, and features in a clean, well-lit place –not on the public web.
Alumni programs need to continue to find improved value –this is yet another way to do it.
As an alumni professional, I recognize that I am in the relationship business. It's that simple. To the extent that technology helps me build relationships with our alumni, then I should use it. FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever – I am platform agnostic. Here are two examples of how we used social media to promote connectedness at BYU… http://bit.ly/ahMCCr and http://bit.ly/99dcLK. See what others are doing… http://bit.ly/7IlVj1.
From an outsider's perspective, I thought I should add that my current graduate studies include a class that has “forced” a Personal Learning Environment scheme on to me, and I find it totally useless and time wasting. However, had it involved alumni, I would be more amenable to it. The problem is twofold: a) although alumni could be an incredibly valuable resource to graduate students, faculty have never considered integrating them into curriculum; b) it hasn't occurred to my department that alumni and student-alumni relations might be a meaningful component of recruitment. The department emphasizes the value of its graduate and PhD programs for upholding the school's reputation for recruitment, though the alumni component seems to be overlooked.
Another point to think about is that there's no need to go to reunions anymore. Due to social networks like FB and LinkedIn, people will never lose touch with each other. There's no reason to go. What does that mean? Lost revenue, even beyond the institution. Schools/local establishments losing event, hotel and other incidental fees. People won't need to lose those stubborn 10 pounds to show up that ex; weight management companies like Weight Watchers will lose revenue. Something else to think about.
I participate regardless of the university's efforts. However, I might participate to a greater extent if the conversation was ongoing, and not just a cold call once a year.
I think Mark Greenfield really nails it in his comment below. The Alumni Office needs to take interest in the student from the day the application is received, not the day they graduate. Being a part of the student experience from day one builds a much stronger relationship than showing up when it's all done.
Jeremiah, do you think that “clean, well-lit” protected space and tying back to the school's mission related to learning can be premium in the sense of revenue generating?
we're trying to figure out the balance between the excellent networking tools and huge base in FB/LI AND what is worth keeping behind the school's firewall so interested in your and other perspectives.
this is a great post. thanks to andy for letting us know about it.
Jeremiah, Great post! Super glad to see you applying your perspective to this space. While there are definitely similarities to how a business engages with its customers through social there are definitely some additional challenges.
I am an alum of the University of Colorado. I am also currently on the Board of Directors at our Alumni Association and am involved in a social media task force among other activities. We are taking a good look at our current presence in the various social media platforms and determining what our strategy should be from the association perspective. We are seeing where we want to land in your matrix above. I just listened to your Altimeter webinar on Social Strategy. Which type of openness (organic, centralized, or coordinated) do you think fits best with alumni associations?
Also, lots of great comments as well. Many picked up on the fees and traditional nature of alumni associations and how those can perhaps conflict with social media concepts/benefits. Last year at CU we started a groundbreaking initiative called Forever Buffs. In a nutshell the two biggest changes were to drop alumni fees (students now pay one time only when they are freshmen) and to open all aspects of the alumni association to students while they are still in school. It sets the stage for the more broad based value, community, sharing benefits for both students and alumni that social media platforms and concepts offer.
Matt – How is the “Forever Buffs” program working out? Was there any push-back from students who have to pay the fee?
Some great tweets here – many along the lines of bypassing the university or alumni organization (the middleman, as you say) to connect with classmates/friends. This is one of our biggest challenges – relevancy. For example, the $75 alumni directory comment seems right on but the majority of large alumni associations still offer them.
Jeremiah,
Thanks for sharing. These are indeed great thoughts on the space of alumni organisations and social networking, social media. This was very pertinent for me, as I run a web startup called Gaboli which sells a 'white labeled' networking platform targeted at business school alumni in India.
Quite often, we get asked the question – 'how is your product different than facebook or linkedin?' or 'Why do we need to make further investements'. Our answer is that in the evolution of building your network it's critical to use open platforms to re-connect and re-engage alumni that have lost touch.
But if you are serious about the network and the alumni association then what you need is something which helps with:
– an official site (our research shows that alumni typically get distributed over 20+ groups in communities across facebook, orkut, linkedin, twitter – where is the one place where i can find everyone?)
– dedicated job boards (the single largest tangible service from an alumni association)
– knowledge management
– regular updates from the school
– people directory based on industry experience, location etc
– content management system so the the alma mater can post regular updates on latest news and events.
– specialised services – transcript management, letters of references, merchandising school branded memorabilia etc.
Interesting long-term possibility. I would characterize it slightly differently. People will still “go to reunions,” but in the medium- and long-term the reunions will no longer be scheduled, planned and managed by the school these people went to. Alumni who want to reconnect in person will simply organize and execute the event themselves with no management role for the alumni association.
Chris, I do not have all the details but from what I know there has not been major push-back on the student side of things. I say major as I am sure some parents more than students have grumbled about yet another matriculation fee but I think once they see the small cost for a lifetime membership with no more asking for additional funds and the resources that are now available to students before they graduate they are quite fine with it. So far the program is working out real well. On the student side they all get the concept immediately just like they get social media and online community immediately. Some of the challenges are on the older side of the audience getting used to the new model which brings up another unique aspect of the alumni association model in social media. The range of demo is from 18 year olds to people in their 90s and everyone in between and they all like their alumni association in different ways.
You're absolutely right. Very few alumni organizations are using social media for anything beyond posting news. From our experience and research with alums, they are critically interested in remaining “a part” of their institutions. They want to continue to participate in a conversation about what's happening at their alma mater beyond sound bites and the glossy hype of the alumni magazine. Social media provides this opportunity to connect alums with each other and with their institution. Media Logic has begun to work with schools to tap content, create advocates and even leverage events and promotions. The protocol we have developed has become attractive to our higher ed clients and prospects because it allows them the freedom to maximize their limited resources and minimize the areas of risk that you've defined.
What would you consider the key success factors for implementing an Alumni Association in general, and, specifically, in Europe?
Good stuff, Jeremiah.
I have been conducting quite a bit of research lately on different aspects of social media and institutional advancement. Most recently, I conducted a survey for one of my clients to measure the impact of social media on its alumni relations. As we all know, more and more alumni are interacting with one another on social media not controlled or mediated by the University or an Alumni Association. In what ways, if any, is this having a positive “ or negative “ impact on the institution? Is it worth investing in resources to encourage and facilitate peer-to-peer interaction on social media? Or, conversely, does the institution need to address damage being done there?
The survey I conducted was designed to answer these questions and identify the ways in which peer-to-peer alumni interaction on social media is helping or hurting the institution in terms of feelings, perceptions, involvement, and support. It also gave us a fuller understanding of which social media alumni are using and how they are using it.
Without violating any confidentiality, I can say that the bottom line is that social media present this particular university with an opportunity much more than a threat: Even now, as its efforts to support and encourage usage are just beginning, social media appear to complement, augment, and amplify its alumni relations objectives much more than they appear to undermine them.
Of course, this could vary from institution to institution depending on a number of different factors — and important nuances, twists, and turns will occur as social media evolve — so I strongly encourage everyone to conduct similar research. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I would be delighted to answer any questions anyone has…or to conduct the research for you.
(I am going to cross-post this to Andy Shaindlin's Alumni Futures blog.)
Jerold Pearson, '75
Director of Market Research, Stanford Alumni Association
Partner, eAdvancement
jpearson@stanford.edu
650-723-9186
As an alumni professional, I recognize that I am in the relationship business. It's that simple. To the extent that technology helps me build relationships with our alumni, then I should use it.
Great post, Jeremiah! I've been looking hard for information about social media and universities — thanks so much.
Laurie at Penn State
I loved the article. I looked at the schools that you listed, I do not think they are a successful model to run off. Check out facebook.com/SIUAlumni
This Association has dedicated themselves to interaction. They also have a presence on Twitter (Twitter.com/SIUAlumni), where they help recruit students and increase retention. Linkedin, is a very promising site especially for Alumni, but the numbers aren't there yet.
Overall, good article.
Great post, Jeremiah! I've been looking hard for information about social media and universities — thanks so much.
Laurie at Penn State
I loved the article. I looked at the schools that you listed, I do not think they are a successful model to run off. Check out facebook.com/SIUAlumni
This Association has dedicated themselves to interaction. They also have a presence on Twitter (Twitter.com/SIUAlumni), where they help recruit students and increase retention. Linkedin, is a very promising site especially for Alumni, but the numbers aren't there yet.
Overall, good article.
Thanks for adding an update with a link to my version of the expanded matrix, Jeremiah. The correct link, however, is actually this!:
http://www.alumnifutures.com/2010/03/alumni-mat…
Good post on an important topic. @redirectny brings up some interesting points as well, but I think alumni orgs can do more work on our end than rely on social networks to do it. I'll be covering similar/related issues in my blog. http://bit.ly/dAwKwR
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Matt,
I come very late to this conversation, but appreciate your shared insights on this topic especially how it relates to the University of Colorado at Boulder. All of the insights shared here prompted me to write of our experience at the Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder should it be of interest to you. Would love to discuss these concepts further with you if you should want to do so. http://www.cuboulderblogs.com/leeds2.0/
For those arriving here via search, or subscribed to the comments: I expanded the matrix again, and it now lists 20 use cases. I blogged it here:
http://www.alumnifutures.com/2010/11/matrix-more-uses.html
We’ve been researching how to assist Alumni organizations specifically in the area of community involvement and grass roots events. You’re message is right on. The associations will have to learn to leverage these technologies not run from them. The new focus must be on leveraging networks and creating real value for the Alumni other than connectivity.