The Best Habits for Successful Digital Alumni Engagement, Part 3
As originally shared, digital engagement strategies are – and should be – unique for every higher education advancement organization. There is no single roadmap to drive alumni engagement success. There is no lone blueprint to build a model foundation for alumni engagement. Digital engagement strategy requires a keen understanding of the institution and its alumni – plus an intimate understanding of the array of digital engagement platforms, channels, and formats that can be deployed from an advancement shop’s arsenal. And, of course, creativity and adaptability.
Though each institution ultimately crafts a unique tapestry of engagement, quite a few consistent elements are woven throughout organizations that are finding success through digital engagement.
Here are 10 more questions to consider as you reflect on and develop strategy for your institution’s digital alumni engagement efforts:
Is there anyone in a leadership position at the university regularly advocating for digital?
Is your university leadership using social media – professionally, personally, or both? And are they regularly following the university’s alumni and other key accounts?
Do you have a dedicated volunteer alumni body that collaborates with staff to provide feedback and ideas on digital engagement?
Are you surveying or otherwise asking alumni for input and insights? And are you leveraging that information?
Is your alumni or advancement office coordinating engagement efforts and opportunities with other key university departments?
Are the graduate school and professional schools at your institution in sync with the mission of the main advancement and alumni engagement operations?
Are you threading a digital experience across the prospective student-student-new grad-alumni lifecycle?
Do you have anyone on staff specifically focused on digital fundraising?
Do you trust your gut to occasionally deliver amazing content or a digital-based program without any data or examples indicating that it will be a success?
Do you truly appreciate just how remarkable it is that – with all of the things competing for people’s attention nowadays – your institution’s graduates are opening your emails, visiting your website, watching your videos, reading your stories, consuming your content, posting to your hashtags, and responding to your social media posts?
Read More
The Best Habits for Successful Digital Alumni Engagement, Part 1
The Best Habits for Successful Digital Alumni Engagement, Part 2
Jon Horowitz is a digital strategy consultant for higher education advancement and alumni engagement. Follow Jon on Twitter @hrwtz and check out horowitzstrategy.com for more on Jon and his work.