Andrew Shaindlin’s 8-step plan to get your alum association on Twitter

Andy Shaindlin and Elizabeth Allen from Alumni Futures has just published a very interesting white paper: Activating Alumni Networks with Twitter.

This free 36-page PDF file includes a good primer about Twitter (aimed at the non-user), an overview about different uses, some recommendations as well as the results of a recent online survey conducted from January 6 to January 13, 2009 with 330 folks working in higher education.

I read Andy’s white paper this morning and so should you (download a copy and share it with your alum association).

Here’s an excerpt of what the practical-tip addict I am found the most interesting in this research paper, i.e the 8-step plan to get your alum association on Twitter:

• Create Twitter accounts in the name of your school and alumni association even if you do not intend to use Twitter for institutional purposes. This will prevent unauthorized or unexpected use (“squatting”) of the names by opportunistic students, alumni, marketers, or others.
• Describe Twitter on your web site and direct alumni to your association profile and other school-related users.
• Consider establishing a professionally oriented use of a personal Twitter account, as an additional channel
  for connecting with constituents with whom you have established an institutional relationship. An alumni
  director might tweet individually and follow his alumni board members.

• Schedule institutional tweets for the weekday, when most users are watching the Twitter stream, and pay attention to time zones. Overnight and weekend tweets will be long gone from the public timeline when alumni log on in the morning.
• Establish a user-populated directory of alumni Twitter usernames.
• Profile publicly how alumni are connecting with each other – not just with the institution – by using Twitter.
• Tell alumni to seek out other alumni among the institution’s or the association’s followers on Twitter.
• Add alumni Twitter usernames to alumni records in the secure online directory and even in the development
  database, and encourage alumni to update their own records with this information.

What did I find interesting in the survey results?

• 36% of respondents are currently using Twitter; a comparable number (37%) know what Twitter is, but have not used it.
• Of those currently using Twitter, 44% are Twittering both for their school and themselves (Karine’s note: this result might be a bit skewed as Twitter users might be more inclined to do a survey about Twitter usage)
• 85% of institutional users are sending out event updates and invites; news of updated web content is broadcast by 59% of institutions, and news of students, faculty and alumni accounts for some tweets from half the respondents.
• Half the institutions using Twitter had fewer than 25 followers. Another 17% had between 25 and 50. 19% boasted more than 100 followers.