A frightening and yet interesting thing happened to Rachel Reuben from SUNY New Paltz a few days ago. The Facebook page she created 2 years ago for her university disappeared. Rachel tried everything to get the page back as she explained in a post she wrote last week: Feeling Naked: A Tale of the Disappearing Facebook Fan Page.
Long story short: Rachel finally got her page back but not the 5,000 fans – although Facebook has since let her know that they are investigating the issue.
This incident and especially the lack of responsiveness from Facebook definitely put a whole new light on the current trend to rely more and more on Facebook for communications between an institution and its students…
About 3 months ago, I was interviewed for a CASE Currents’ article about private vs. public social networks for alums. While I didn’t mention the possibility of such an incident, I tried to offer a balanced view on the topic.
The article written by Caroline Mayer, The Inner Circle, has been published in the October issue (but is only accessible to CASE members), so I thought some of you might be interested in my answers to Mayer’s questions.
1. How vital is it for schools to set up an online community? Is it necessary and why/ why not? Are alumni associations without online communities missing out on something?
I wouldn’t say that it is vital for schools to *set up* online communities. However, I believe it is very important to join the conversation taking place on the Web (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn come to mind) as these online communities gather alumni who are definitely passionate about their alma mater and want to engage with their peers.
A few years ago, online community solutions were pitched by vendors as the next (natural) step to alumni associations relying at that time on more traditional print directories. These wall-garden solutions were sold as the ultimate tools to gather demographic data and contact information from alumni as they would allow them to connect with their old classmates. Unfortunately, most of the implementations of these solutions failed to engage enough alums to get the conversation rolling.
Today, while the tools have evolved and more and more associations have created groups or pages on popular social networking websites, it is easier to reach a critical mass. But, this doesn’t mean that it is easier to nurture and develop online communities. It takes a lot of work and time, and associations should only launch online communities if they are sure they can invest the efforts necessary to make them successful.
2. Does it make any difference how it’s done? i.e. should it be a private network where only alums can go making it feel special (and giving the schools the access to databases such as email addresses) or should it be where most of the alums hang out these days (Facebook, Linkedin).
As I said above, the problem with private communities is participation.
Alums (and other constituents) live busy lives offline and online. If schools can offer a unique and compelling experience to their community members, they can definitely be successful with a private social networking website. However, they should prepare to work harder and longer to attract and keep these members interested. If they are successful, their hard work will be paid by access to more contact information.
In the case of the most popular social networking websites, it takes less effort to attract community members as they are already using these websites to keep up with their friends and colleagues, but it doesn’t mean it’s easier to keep them interested. On these sites, alums have other options to spend their time – countless options just one link away within the same familiar interface.
3. Is a private network worth the costs? Do private networks provide anything that Facebook and other networks don’t?
First, a private network doesn’t always come with a big price tag. More and more institutions launch private social networking websites using the Ning platform – which is basically free or cost a minimal monthly fee if you wish to remove Google ads or/and use a branded web address.
Some vendor solutions do come at a hefty price though. While the user experience offered by most of these solutions is very similar to the ones provided at no cost, some vendors have set up interesting link between their community application and other CRM/ERM solutions, allowing to set up a system tracking community members from engagement on the social networking website to donations — or matriculation in the case of prospective students.
Private networks also provide a sense of greater privacy – especially when alum associations choose to keep them totally private (you have to be a member to read AND post). On Facebook, pages – used by institutions to manage their community – are indexed by Google. Any comments made on these pages by a fan – i.e. a member of a Facebook page – can be associated to its author right from a Google search.
4. Is a public network worth the lack of control?
It really comes down to participation and engagement. Is it worth losing a bit of control if people are actually going to come to your party? Probably. Moreover, if schools manage to create communities on Facebook or Linkedin and become their administrator, they actually keep some control – they can delete comments, prioritize the order in which some discussions are displayed, etc. However, there is always a risk of backlash if schools intervene too much and try to censor conversations.
It’s very exciting to be thinking about this when no one knows the “right” answer yet. It seems like most people see that failing to participate in on-line networking can come at a cost to schools, but we’re having trouble agreeing on the costs of being ‘public’ versus ‘private’. Regardless of the strategy, it’s important for schools to remain authentic and engaging – keep your alumni feeling like important members of your community, and they’ll act that way!
Karine, I think you did a great job of making the main points in a very compact statement – nice job. I think some administrators fall into a trap when making the open/closed decision, which is to say “why let people go somewhere else, when we can get them to come to our site/community?” The truth seems increasingly to be that alumni simply will NOT come to your site/community, especially if it requires them to complete yet another profile, uses a separate log in scheme, and if it doesn’t appear to be populated with a lot of other people who share the alum’s interests and concerns.
I’m still interested in whether there is real data that illustrates ongoing success with a private-label community in 2009, and how their traffic and stickiness compare with the public sites such as Facebook.
Thanks for your comment, Andy.
I’ll try to see if I can find an example or 2 with some data.