Alumni & Social Media - Connecting with Folks Made Easier

Institutions for higher education are striving hard to revive and reinforce strong relations with their alumni. This bond-building with alumni is important for establishing brand-loyalty, increasing engagement and encouraging ongoing giving and support. Alumni relations are growing in importance in for a number of reasons. Saviance team believes in sharing information about the market trends as to what is working and what is not can help them become more successful in this discipline.

Saviance Technologies helps alumni association leverage a number of emerging internet technologies to achieve their mission of connecting back to their alumnus. We offer consulting, development and infrastructure services that: Develop and manage alumni relations; provide them with a new conceptual and structural framework for leading alumni association’s activities to attract and retain its alumnus; helps alumnus, members of the association and institution to access and update information from any web-enabled device. All these and many more along with flexible, robust, scalable solution with rich user interface.

Alumni management solutions by Saviance Technologies help the institutions as well associations save on their time and money without any drastic transition in terms of technology use. They can connect with their community in no time, improving relationships leading to increased fundraising.

Social Media Integration and Alumni Associations

Various alumni associations are leveraging social media to strengthen the bonds between the alumni; and between the alma mater and its alumnus. This has been possible with the sudden rise, in the options for digital communications tools that are available in the market. These tools provide a base for collaborating, connecting and communicating with the alums. At the same time, social media is the most cost-effective and effective way to reach out to alumnae. Some of the major social media integration seen in the alumni sites is discussed in this blog.

Realizing the opportunity, many associations have started designing portals for its members; that provide them one window access to various options for connecting and communicating with each other. There has been an increase in the number of tools used for initiating conversations with its users. This is done with the integration of tools for discussion boards, forums, notes etc. Aggregation tools are used for blogs that add to the content of the site as well as it gives a chance to the members to contribute. Event management tools are used to facilitate events for members.

The opportunities are great for alumni association, these same tools that risk their existence can be used to increase user base, cut costs, and a wealth of content being created by their own members.

Reconnecting, Recapturing and Reliving – Alumni Association of BIMTECH

Alumni association of Birla Institute of Management Technology wanted to design a more innovative, engaging and modern online center for its alums. They were able to launch their alumni online network with Saviance Technologies robust Viburnix solution to create cutting edge alumni software. This software included alumni online directory, association pages, event and reunion pages etc.

Some of the engagement options offered by the solution for alumni association include: Events – alums can search for various upcoming events as well as create new events. Careers – Alumni can search and post various jobs. Online Giving – Options to contribute and donate online is another highlight of the system, they can also give back to their alma mater by opting in for Guest Lecturer or by signing in for a Mentorship program. Different options for Group Networks allow alumni to connect not only to their peers but also to their seniors as well as juniors who share same interest. Members can look out for their peers by a variety of descriptors. And many more such features are available.

All these with centralized login for all alumni, to update their information as well as connect with their institution. Viburnix provided BIMTECH with an alumni software that presented them with some key online technology features such as CMS to maintain and update information about the institute; Advanced Email option that makes communication with members easier; events registration and calendar to schedule and invite alumnus for events.

Journey to Viburnix – Alumni Portal

A recent alumni study reveals that 83% of members prefer to be contacted about general alumni matters via interactive methods such as email, social networks, and alumni websites & blogs. So alumni association, who want to keep a tap on their pool of alumnae should learn to harness the power of social media to engage them.

Many of our clients had the system of e-newsletters in place when they approached us; and based on the success of it they wanted a more comprehensive online community solution that would allow them to reach large numbers of alumni efficiently. There were also a number of other internal objectives, which comprised of re-engaging lost or disengaged alumni, combining existing online services (here there was e-newsletter), and implementing an easy online fundraising component.

Our development team was also pressured from a number of external factors; it included a great rise in the e-communications-based model. Members of alumni association now expected e-communications and online communities. They required tools that were Web-based with advanced e-mail and directory components, and they had to possess knowledge sharing forum, blog, and content management capability. They also had to be affordable.

With our consistent efforts, we were able to meet many of the challenges, discovered new opportunities and alumni engagement with Viburnix.

Successful Alumni Online Solution Implementation

This alumni portal brings fellows together by providing them one place where they can exchange information and business strategies and stay connected with each other and with their alma mater. All the information and updates can be made to the system online through secure pages. The team behind the designing of this alumni software took an edge over the others in the market by, carefully adopting the following steps that support launching of a successful community online possible.

•  Define the right project
• Design the right online solution
•  Execute and provide support
• Measure ROI

This is the process that goes behind every successful implementation for any alumni association. The first stage involves understanding the need and current trend that an alumni association follows to interact with their alums; and also what are the expectations of alums from their alma mater. The second phase of the process involves matching of alumni expectations along with the designed solution. It is also a step when all the features are aligned to meet the business objectives. Third step is the execution and implementation step – here the team executes the design requirements to a product. Training of the core team to manage the software also takes place during this phase. Last and final stage of this alumni online solution is to measure ROI in terms of key statistics against the original project objectives.

Alumni Portal for a Management Institute

Saviance Technologies has to its credit the implementation of Viburnix – alumni portal for its client – a premier management institute. They proclaim that their greatest asset is their alumni. Keeping them connected to the institute is the main objective of their alumni association.The client approached Saviance to develop a comprehensive alumni online community to reach out to their entire alumni community since 1954 and inform & engage them with the current updates and happenings at their Alma Mater.

Viburnix is a solution developed by us keeping in mind the needs of the client. It has all the features incorporated to manage and involve alumnae such as advanced alumni directory, events, newsletters, knowledge base, gallery etc. The software also has an admin panel that assists the institute to upload the data very easily. Now their site showcases all the information in an organized pattern to their entire student community and provides those opportunities to give it back to their alma mater.

This portal has made our client reconnect and reinforce their relation with their alumni. It is now a single-point contact for both the institute and its students where they get all up-to-date information about the happenings at the campus. Students are leveraging this platform to interact with their illustrious alumnus.

For more information, visit www.viburnix.com.