Our Alumni...

Not So "FAR" Away!

Presenting:

Michelle Johnstonjohnstonmr@montevallo.edu

Molly Waskomwasko@uab.edu

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About the Presenters

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• Using Social Media to Engage with students and alumni

• Leveraging Social Media and APIs to add more Data

• Using Web Analytics and Digital Trace Data to assess Impact

Agenda:

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How do we stay connected with our students once they graduate?

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What about you?

Raise your hand if you have an updated alumni page with your alma mater……

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What about you?

Raise your hand if you have an updated LinkedIn profile……

If we can’t rely on alumni to keep an updated profile, are there ways to tap into the places where students and alumni are engaged?

Turning the question around

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• Using Social Media to Engage with students and alumni

• Leveraging Social Media and APIs to add more Data

• Using Web Analytics and Digital Trace Data to assess Impact

Part I:

Trends in social media: overall usage

Trends in social media: Facebook

Trends in social media: Twitter

Trends in social media: LinkedIn

259M+

©2013 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

professionals

3M+companies

150+industries

Executives from every

Fortune 50060K+college and university alumni groups

64%64% outside the U.S.

company

30M+students and recent grads

Trends in social media: LinkedIn University

LinkedIn updated terms of use to include 14-18 years olds:

Emerging as the #1 solution for the entire student lifecycle:

• enrollment • placement• alumni engagement

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• Using Social Media to Engage with students and alumni

• Leveraging Social Media and APIs to add more Data

• Using Web Analytics and Digital Trace Data to assess Impact

Part II:

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Financial Pressures:• More reliant on alumni giving• Public criticisms over tuition increases

Accreditation and Accountability:• Higher education accreditation• Greater accuracy and transparency across University systems

Regulatory Pressures:• Higher Education Scorecard • What’s a degree worth?

Why you need better alumni data

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What data sources do you need?

Can’t rely on alumni to keep an updated profile

Current methods of tracking employment, additional degrees, emails etc. are either manually intensive or prone to error

Type I Error: You can’t engage with people that you don’t know

Type II Error: Taking the wrong approach with the people you do know

Type III Error: Taking the right approach, but at the wrong time

We would if we could

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How do you get it? Trends for the future….

…. Data partners and

APIs

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API – Open data sharing across platforms

API stands for ‘application programming interface’

An API is a way for website or service to talk to another website or service. APIs let you mix information and media from other services into your own site or application.

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by

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API – Social Media API

“Universal” API Terms of

Use

You cannot use the API to crawl or store users' content without their express consent

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Data Partners offer matching services

Education Fields to track

graduate education

Current LocationCurrent IndustryLinkedIn URLCurrent PositionCurrent EmployerDates Employed

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What do you do with it if you do get it?

Have a clear strategy for integrating this data into your current alumni RMS

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• Using Social Media to Engage with students and alumni

• Leveraging Social Media and APIs to add more Data

• Using Web Analytics and Digital Trace Data to assess Impact

Part III:

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• Limited time and resources

• Are we making an impact?

• Are we making the right impact?

• Developing Key Performance Indicators using digital trace data

Busy Engagement

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Digital Trace Data: From Atoms to Bytes

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Example: Print versus Email

With computer-mediated channels, you can measure impact

Who opened it?Who forwarded it?How long did they view it?Contains a click-through call to action

Clickstream

Multiple Outcomes

Experimentation and Testing

Voice of the Customer

Competitive Intelligence

Insights

The What

The How Much

The Why

The What Else

The Goal!

Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0

Multiplicity Analytics strategy

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The What – Clickstream Data

The what is simply collecting and analyzing your website’s click-level data

Clickstream is foundational data to help you analyze all kinds of site behavior

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The How Much - Multiple Outcomes

You are trying to deliver on 3 simple things:

• Increase revenue

• Reduce cost

• Improve student/alumni satisfaction/loyalty

A million visits to the site – so what?

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The Why - Experimentation

Experiment first, and then build your strategy

• Take a bigger risk

• Rapid launch and test

• Fail fast

What is best received by the alumni?

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The Why – Voice of the Customer

Your web analytics tool can only report what it records: quantitative vs. qualitative data

• Surveys

• Lab usability tests

• Visual heat maps

Oh, this is why they abandoned!

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The What Else – Competitive Intelligence

On the web, you can gather tons of information about your competitors

• Knowing how you’re performing is good

• Knowing how you’re performing against your competition is priceless

How do I compare to the competition?

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The Goal – Insight!

Avoid becoming overwhelmed by digital trace data

• The critical few

• Keep it simple

• Experiment

• Improve

Adapt, test, and measure outcomes

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Sample Impact MatrixDirect Channels Types of Activities Metrics

Internal Website Update InformationAlumni DirectoryAlumni ChaptersAlumni NewsSocial Media PresenceMentoring NetworkAlumni CommunityGive Now

Page ViewsSource PagesTime SpentUnique VisitorsUpdatesCommunity ActivityGiving

Mobile Apps Find Nearby AlumniCampus MapAlumni GamesEventsGive Now

DownloadsData SharingTime on appGiving

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Thank You