Developing a Social Media Strategy for Alumni

Keidra Chaney and Anne Divita KopaczDePaul University

Who Are We?

• DePaul University– 8th largest private university in the U.S.– 130,000 alumni, primarily in Chicago area

• Office of Advancement – Development– Alumni Relations– Communications– Web staff

How We Approach Social Media

• Our objective: increase alumni engagement• About building relationships • Sharing information/content• Go to existing engaged communities

Challenges

• Integrating with communication strategy

• Dealing with bureaucracy

• Establishing measurable goals

• Allaying skittishness about privacy/content

• Assigning staff to create content

• Getting a consensus among stakeholders

• Establishing online community guidelines

It Starts with the Website…

• November 2008 relaunch

• Alumni portal– News– Events– Alumni profiles– Benefits/services– Social media box– Social bookmarking box

…Continues with Email…

…And Includes Print!

Social Media

• Facebook alumni page

• LinkedIn alumni group/subgroups

• Demon Tracks blog

• Twitter account (@depaulalumni)

• Flickr photostream

• YouTube channel (depaulalumnifriends)

Facebook Alumni Page

• 4,300 fans

• Averages 50-60new members weekly

• Avg. 600-800 unique page views per week

Facebook Alumni Page

• DePaul content– News and event listings – Blog posts and web links– Photos and video

• Fan content– Wall posts, photos, video– Discussion groups

• Next step – Facebook Connect

LinkedIn Alumni Group

• Professional and social networking community

• 5,700 members

• Averages 100 new members weekly

• Active job posting & discussion boards

LinkedIn Alumni Group

• 8 subgroups for regional chapters

• 1 affinity-based subgroup

• 1 topic-based subgroup

• Next steps: – More subgroups by

affinity and/or college– Respond to user input

Demon Tracks

• Staff-written blog

• Alumni, faculty, studentsin the news & on the web

• Posts syndicated to Facebook and LinkedIn

• Intern blogger added this

quarter

Demon Tracks Success Stories

Twitter

• 300+ followers• News from DePaul

and external sources• Communicate directly

with alumni in “real time”• Join in DePaul (and

non-DePaul) conversation

DePaul Spirit Flickr Page

• 28 Group members and 300 photos

• Alumni and staff posted photos

• Photostream and Group Pool

• Replaces on-sitephoto gallery

YouTube Channel

• Dedicated video channel

• Hosts web and email videos

• Partner with faculty and students

• Next step: integrate with other media

Chart O’Fun

MESSAGING

• Many measurement tools– Facebook Insights– YouTube Insights– Flickr Stats – Google Analytics

• Numbers vs. context

• What we do: narrative report

Measurement

Finding Content

• Look everywhere for content– Media relations– College publications– Our print magazines and newsletters– Our other social media – External news outlets and blogs– Google Alerts

• Create our own content

Key Take-Aways1. Create a strategy

2. Partner with other departments

3. Match media to audience

4. Build relationships and foster conversations

5. Go where alumni are

6. Update content regularly

7. Reuse, recycle content

8. Measure, measure, measure

9. Experiment – and don’t fear failure!

Questions?