Keeping In Touch With Your Graduates

Published June 06, 2008
In the old days you sent a chatty snail mail letter to your graduates. It was full of news about marriages, grad school, jobs, and so on. Of course, it was always had updates and information about goings on at school, sports results and a word from your favorite teachers. Those kind of newsletter mailings to alumni still go out. But they have been largely supplemented by interactive school web sites where graduates can log on and keep in touch with their classmates.
 
Well, that was the theory and practice. It worked for a year or two until alumni relations staff suddenly twigged to the reality that their most recent classes don't stay in touch that way. Snail mail is fine for the class of '70 and earlier. Web portals may be effective for the classes prior to '00. But these recent grads are a completely different beast.

The classes from 2001 onwards are the text, cellphone and Facebook crowd. They are all about social networking. Put a class reunion on YouTube and the fallout will be tremendous. When one of your alums creates a group on a social networking site, it will invariably draw other alums. They all love keeping in touch, but doing so on their terms, electronically.

So, what is a harried alumni director supposed to do? Embrace all three forms of communication. In truth you do have three quite different constituencies. Send out your quarterly snail mailings. Encourage interactivity and donations via your web site. Fan the flames of social networking.

 

 

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