Your alumni online community can’t compete with Facebook for social conversations, and it can’t compete with LinkedIn for career connections – so don’t even try. It can, however, provide tools and information that alumni cannot find anywhere else. Find out how to combine the benefits of your proprietary network with the major social media outlets to create a one stop toolkit to help your alumni do what they want to do quickly and easily.
Unlike admissions, where the demographic is largely homogeneous in terms of age and technological aptitude, alumni span many different generations and a wide spectrum of comfort levels with technology and preferences for media consumption. It is a real challenge to successfully leverage the right online tools for the right alumni sub-audience while keeping everything under one cohesive brand.
I hope my experience at SUNY Geneseo as manager of the U-Knight launch project and ongoing role as online community manager can help others who are undertaking such projects. I’ll speak about the approach I took to U-Knight and what progress and stumbling blocks have been encountered along the way.
Specifically this presentation will be useful for those working with:
* Harris Connect, iModules, and other online alumni directory software
* Alumni relations websites
* Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages that are targeted towards alumni audiences
7. State of the industry
Full Service Alumni Systems
“Walled Gardens”1
Closed to non-alumni
Trade size in for exclusivity
Use alumni trust as competitive advantage
1. From Andy Shaindlin @alumnifutures -
http://www.alumnifutures.com/2011/03/groups-online.html
13. •
My moment of panic…
• The Harris Connect 5 year
contract was already signed
before I arrived.
• Did I just inherit a system that
is already dead in the water?
• I needed to figure out a way
to make it work.
• I had 10 months. %#$!
17. What is U-Knight?
The elevator speech
U-Knight is a collection of online sites and
services that help Geneseo alumni find and
connect with each other and the institution by
sharing news, conversation, experiences and
expertise.
18. What is U-Knight?
One sentence
A place online for alumni to do the things that
they want to do to engage with each other and
Geneseo.
19. Goals
Launch U-Knight in 10 months (by Oct. 2010)
Achieve 5,000 alumni registrations within one
year (10% of all alumni)
20. Goals
Establish and grow the alumni online social
media presence
Get 50% of the graduating class of 2011
registered for U-Knight
21. Components of a
Successful Launch
Collaborative Project Team
Data Integration
Feature Selection
Marketing and Promotion
25. Data Integration
The online community is only as good as
your online directory
The online directory is only as good as
your data
Garbage data will undermine your efforts
26. Data Integration Issues
Integrity: missing/incorrect information
Privacy: what is hidden by default
Authentication: getting IDs to users
Timeliness: must synchronize nightly
28. Feature Set Selection
What actions do alumni want to take?
Share
Find
Promote
Participate
Discuss
29. Feature Set Selection
What actions does Geneseo want
alumni to take?
Share Lead
Find Support
Promote
Participate
Discuss
30. Feature Selection
Find the right mix of features
Find the best provider for each feature
Don‟t use a solution just because you‟ve
already paid for it – ie: Harris social media
62. Results After 1 Year
Almost 4,500 (90% to goal and 9% of all
alumni) registered users
Over 55% (600) of class of „11 signed up
before graduation
2,660 Facebook fans on new page
10,000 unique visits to U-Knight homepage
63. Results After 1 Year
15,000 alumni directory searches
performed
250 Class Notes submitted online
2011 SUNYCUAD award of excellence
for U-Knight as Best in Category: Alumni
Programs
64. Lessons Learned
Creating an online alumni community
involves a ton of offline work
Successful implementation requires an
entire division, not just one person
Using traditional media to promote new
media works, cross media is the goal
65. Lessons Learned
Private networks can be relevant in
conjunction with public networks because
your alumni trust you
Private network software contains a ton of
bloatware, so be skeptical
66. Lessons Learned
If the vendor‟s writing isn‟t up to par, scrap
it and write it yourself
Self-service ID tools save tons of customer
service time
67. My new moment of
panic…
• Purchased Harris Career
Advisory Network in July
• LinkedIn Classmates just
released Oct. 20
• Is our new module irrelevant
overnight?
• %#$!
• Stay Tuned!
Sealed communities makes me think of locking all our alumni in a room with no way out.Imodules – 600 schools, half public half privateHarris Connect – Over 700
Missing or incorrect info was not part of the datasetPrivacy was matched to be the same as the print directory / white pagesRegistration was handled by self-service web form IT programmed a script to transfer both ways nightly