1. How to Jump Start
and Nurture your
Online Alumni Community

2. Panel Members
Renee S. Mona, Director, Corporate & Alumni Engagement
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington
rsmona@u.washington.edu
Eric Warn, Director of Alumni Relations
Antioch University Seattle
ewarn@antiochseattle.edu
Mark Walker, Chief Information Officer
123 Social Media
www. 123socialmedia.com

3. Interesting
Statistics
Social Networking
and
The Generation Gap

4. Generation Gap
Needs updating
Baby Boomers (1946 -1964) 75 Million
Some Digital Aliens ; Some Have Caught Up
Gen X & Y (1965 -1980) 50+ million
Digital Immigrants
Some reached adulthood with little experience using
technology
Today many embrace some technology
Millennials (1980+) 75 million
Digital Natives
Completely immersed in technology most since birth

5. Age Differences
need updated stats
Source: http://business.rapleaf.com/company_press_2008_06_18.html

6. Social Media
Defined
Social Networking in Plain Network
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6a_KF7TYKVc&feature=channel

7. Current On-Line Alumni Presence on the following
Community: Social Networks:
- In-house system - MySpace
- Harris - Facebook
- IAC - LinkedIn
- Your Membership - Friendster
- Kintera - Plaxo
- iModules: Encompass - Hi5
- Other - Twitter
- Plan on changing in the next year? - Flicker
- Google Friend Connect
Use of the following Audio-
Visual Content:
- Blogs
- Vlogs
- iTunes
- YouTube
- Podcasts

8. Where to Start?
Finding your alumni
What do they want, need & why?
Defining your goals
Empowering your most active alumni
Providing exclusive content
Launching your social platform
Your new bosses

9. Where Are Your
Alumni?
Large University vs. Small College
How do you find your alumni
Alumni Finder -Guarantees 98% success rate for street addresses and
10% for email addresses
USPS National Change of Address (NCOA)
Google
ZabaSearch
DexOnline
Email addresses are everything
Ask faculty for current information on alums they are in contact with
When contacted by alums, verify you have their email address in your
database
Contact alumni asking them to help “find” missing alumni
Business information & titles
Important to have for a number of reasons
Going for grants -Event Coordination -Mentor Program -more…

10. What Do They
Want & Why?
Importance of targeted survey
Benefits of focus groups
Job leads; Career development/transition
Categories of networking
Workshops; what are the trends
Panels-faculty & community leaders on
trends
Book Clubs; Well-known authors
What else?

11. Define Your
Goals
Identify the purpose of your online interactions
To help alums connect with one another resulting
in:
More donations
Better buzz
More applications and inquiries
How do measure success?
Google analytics
Community Size on Facebook, MySpace/RSS feed
subscribers
New alumni information
Do you have the staff?
Do you have the IT infrastructure?

12. Engage Active
Alumni
Who are your most engaged alumni?
MBA vs. BA
Student Leaders
GOLD; Reunion Volunteers
Regional Representatives
Alumni Board Members
Donors
How do you engage them in your social platform?

13. What is Exclusive
Content?
Alumni live busy lives - offline and online – and will only respond
to those things that resonate
Your institution has to offer something really special to keep their
attention and differentiate your online space from the social
networking malls of the web
If you can offer exclusive access to information and resources
your alumni won’t find somewhere else you increase the chances
of having them visit your own social workshop on a regular basis
For alumni, particularly young graduates, think job postings,
career counseling, unique workshops or links to topical news and
information

14. Social Platforms
eNewsletters - it’s an art, be sure to study
Blog – making the time
Facebook - LinkedIn
Podcasting
Videoblogging
YouTube
Twitter
New Killer Apps – mobile phones

15. Facebook.com
In December, 2008, 222 million people
visited Facebook
Facebook has 100 million more
worldwide users than MySpace
Facebook had 80 billion monthly page
views in December vs 43 billion for
MySpace

18. Faculty & Staff
Profiles
How much do you really want students
to know?
Do Millennials expect a more personal
connection?
Should you accept “friend requests”?
What if you see something you don’t
want to see?

19. LinkedIn.com
The most professional networking site
The fewest ads; only one profile photo; no videos or
music
Utilized by “more than 20 million experienced
professionals”
Ideal for professional and alumni networking and
professional recommendations
Can be used on student’s business cards and email as
electronic resume
Researching interviewers
Competitors: doostang, plaxo

20. Blogs & Vlogs
Blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website
where entries are commonly displayed in reverse
chronological order (Wikipedia)
Commentary or online diary
Blog - term coined in May 1999 – Peter Merholz
Vlog - Video blog are entries embedded video, images
and other metadata (data about data)
Utilized by employers, career centers
On-line communities, students discuss the process of
internships and obtaining a position
Can search blogs on these search engines – Bloglines,
BlogScope, and Technorati.
2007 – 112 Million Blogs

22. Podcasts & .
mp3s
Digital media files shared over the internet
which are played back on personal computers,
and portable media players
Refers to the script which is utilized to convert
it to a media player
iPod (Apple), Zune (Microsoft), Podracer (Linux),
Doppler (Windows)
Used for workshops, events, eLearning
One of the most popular formats for student
services and educational settings

23. iTunes &
YouTube Channels
Channels dedicated to the content of a
particular center or department
Can offer workshops on-line where students
can watch them on the web or download them
onto their iPods or .mp3 devices
Can have interesting resources for use with
students
Online Resumes

24. It’s Launch Time
What are you currently doing to get alumni
involved in a community?
How are you encouraging the conversation?
How are you providing a place for the
conversation to happen?
How are you going to use social networking to
get your alumni talking?

25. Your New Bosses
Your online community members
They can make or break your community
Acknowledge their contributions or implement
their suggestions
Involve them in creating a multichannel wide-
net approach to increase your chances of
getting read

26. HAPPY
NETWORKING!
Questions?