The Problem with Alumni Network Platforms

Like most engagement pros, I’ve had the opportunity to demo a ton of the platforms that are designed to catalyze university stakeholder networks. There’s Graduway, PeopleGrove, 360Alumni, Almabase, Switchboard, Quadrangle, Tassl and probably several others I’m forgetting. In addition, companies like iModules, Blackbaud, and Evertrue have designed network platforms to stimulate engagement and foster enhanced donor prospecting. The market is full of platforms aimed at getting our stakeholders off the bench and I’m not even mentioning the ones that are more specifically mentoring oriented.

Most network platforms are designed first and foremost to be an outward-facing, searchable database of alumni, and often faculty, staff, and students too. These platforms include features like photo galleries, job boards, mentoring functionalities, e-newsletter capabilities, the ability to create groups, and provide another avenue for stakeholders to communicate.

When I started at Longwood University as the AVP, Alumni and Career Services in 2015, I led in the purchase and deployment of the Graduway network platform which we’ve called the Longwood Network. The platform has been one of a number useful tools in our toolbox particularly as it helps explain an important part of the merger between our alumni and career teams. When other engagement pros ask for my opinion about the value of the Graduway platform when it comes to network-building, I talk about it in these terms:

“It (Graduway) fits nicely into our narrative that alumni are part of an outer-inner circle of people that are available to students and willing to help. Unlike in Linkedin, which is still the most important professional network by far, in the Longwood Network alumni have self-identified as willing to help. For alumni, the Longwood Network acts as an activation point where they can express the desire to get involved. In addition, all stakeholders can find others that are eager to connect with each other because the university makes up an important part of their identity.”

But there are challenges too.

Not long ago, I met with a student for a career appointment. After I explained how the Longwood Network is different than Linkedin and filled with alumni willing to help, she said, “That’s great! Does that mean alumni are more likely to respond to messages through the Longwood Network than on Linkedin?”

I didn’t say it at the time, but sadly, the answer lies somewhere between “I don’t know” and “probably not.” Although not without its own challenges, Linkedin remains a better and more important tool when it comes to network-building and communicating with new contacts.

Since deploying the Graduway platform only 55% of all users (students, alumni, parents, faculty/staff) with activated accounts have returned to the platform a second time since their initial login. That percentage is even lower when looking at just alumni. After more than two years, 7% of contactable alumni have activated accounts in the Longwood Network. Is that good? Bad? Or should we be thinking about the utility of the platform differently. Hmm…

Is it us, or is it the network platform?

As a team, we haven’t been focused on actively marketing the Longwood Network beyond word of mouth other than when we launched it. At this point, we think of it as just one of our many tools to activate our stakeholders.

Why not focus on marketing the platform, you ask? Good question. The answer is we’ve been busy marketing other things like our on-campus and regional events, volunteer initiatives, and our podcast. When we promote those events and initiatives, we don’t send them to the Longwood Network to get more information or sign up. We’ve been focused on driving traffic to our website and engagement on social media where the actual conversions and conversations are happening. Also, over the last few years as our .edu presence has improved considerably, posting content to the Longwood Network has become redundant and more of a burden to keep current.

Much of our current state of affairs when it comes to our network platform has stemmed from a reality that there must be an on-going and highly strategic marketing effort to activate new users and stimulate engagement inside the platform. But the data is telling us that once stakeholders arrive and take a look at the platform, only half are likely to ever return. So why focus on engagement in the network platform? Without really consciously choosing to do so, our people resources have moved away from the Longwood Network.

Right now, we’re evaluating all of our tools as we do every so often. As I’ve had the chance to speak with attendees recently at CASE conferences and elsewhere, I’m finding that most people are facing the same challenge and are unsure what to do.

I hope we can have a conversation here about network platforms and their overall utility. Here are three questions to keep the conversation going:

1) If schools, colleges and universities did not have an outward-facing, searchable alumni directory, would stakeholders really complain?

My reaction is that probably yes, but about five people. The rest would use Google, Linkedin, Facebook to find people like always. For those five people or maybe 30, maybe we could just provide customer service and help them reconnect. But the DATA you say! Yup, important consideration.

2) What percentage of features available in network platforms would be redundant through great web design and best practice usage of social media?

Most of them, right? How do sentiments about our alumni .edu websites impact our sense of value when it comes to network platforms?

3) What are we doing with the engagement data available through our network platforms? How does that data inform strategy and decision-making?

At Longwood, we’re tracking activated accounts on the Longwood Network as one of many points towards greater activation of alumni.

Ryan Catherwood is Assistant Vice President of Alumni and Career Services at Longwood University. Check out the new Advancement Legends podcast. Follow Ryan on twitter @RyanCatherwood and check out his other posts here on Linkedin or on www.higheredlive.com.