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.
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-…
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Great post, Jeremiah! I've been looking hard for information about social media and universities — thanks so much.
Laurie at Penn State
Great post, Jeremiah! I've been looking hard for information about social media and universities — thanks so much.
Laurie at Penn State
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/