Feature: The MSU Alumni Association in the New Social Media
With the current surge in social media, the MSUAA has leveraged a new communication strategy to become a lifetime network for alumni.
On March 28, just hours before MSU’s basketball team returned to campus from its NCAA regional championship win in St. Louis against Tennessee, Scott Westerman, executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, pursued an idea.
Wouldn’t alumni around the world want to experience the rousing homecoming that was awaiting this triumphant team? Thousands of students and fans would pack the Breslin Center to honor these warriors who fought their way into a Final Four despite multiple injuries. Spartan fans also wanted to honor Coach Tom Izzo, whose March mastery includes six Final Fours in 12 seasons—the best record of any men’s basketball coach in America.
Why not allow alumni around the globe to savor this moment? So reasoned Bob Groves, MSU vice president for University Advancement, and Westerman.
“We set up a Ustream feed, and we started tweeting the link, and put it out on Facebook,” Westerman told the Lansing State Journal. “We were saying, ‘If you can’t be with us at the Bres tonight, join us on Ustream for the welcome home event.’”
The upshot? Within an hour, more than 1,000 people from some 30 states and as far away as Australia and Bulgaria tuned in to the live Internet broadcast (at msustream.com). A few days later, many more—call them Alumni 2.0—were able to see live streaming video of the MSU pep rally near the team hotel in Indianapolis, as well as of the Butler game-watch party at Jillian’s, a downtown Indianapolis bar where nearly 200 Spartans gathered.
Before the advent of social media, such scenarios were hard to imagine. But Westerman, a retired cable television executive and social media guru, knows how to leverage the power of social media to create faster, vaster and more meaningful connections with alumni. The Ustream broadcast is merely one example of how he and his staff are transforming the MSU Alumni Association’s ability to deliver services to its members.
Westerman wants to double the MSUAA’s membership, currently around 34,000 (out of more than 400,000 alumni worldwide). He is working hard to position the MSU Alumni Association as one’s “personal network for life”—a service organization that can help alumni at every life stage, from finding a job to settling down in a new community to pursuing continuing education. He believes social media, with its speed and viral reach, can serve as a tool in achieving that goal.
What is “social media”? The term refers to the dissemination of information via social interaction on the Web, through such vehicles as Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter and YouTube, or emerging sites such as Foursquare. Social media relies on consumer-generated content, such as the videos on YouTube or the information in Wikipedia. Social media is characterized by interactivity and conversation, which contrasts with the traditional media where one-way information is “pushed” out via print, radio and television. Social media has been gathering momentum throughout the 2000s; what started out as a tool for social networking has grown into a marketing tool for businesses and organizations, as alumnus Erik Qualman, ’94, professor of digital marketing at Hult International Business School, explains in his book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business (Wiley, 2009). Qualman’s “Social Media Revolution” video on YouTube, by the way, has been viewed 1.8 million times and gives a pithy explanation of this new development.
“In the old days, neighbors would gather around the back fence and eventually any news would make its way around the entire neighborhood,” notes Westerman. “Social media works the same way, except it’s exponentially faster and the communities might be much larger. Instead of geographical neighborhoods, for example, you can have national or international groups based on commonalities.”
Westerman’s boss, Bob Groves, also has learned to navigate that environment with the ease of a digital native. Last year, for example, he sent out holiday greetings via a multi-media presentation on YouTube. He boasts hundreds of followers on Twitter.
“The advent of social media requires us to change how we listen, and it requires us to think differently about how we communicate,” says Groves, who foresees new social media applications in alumni engagement and fundraising. “Just as television didn’t kill radio, social media has not killed traditional ways of communicating. Print media will still be with us, but there are new tools that provide the means for two-way communication.
“That’s very powerful because we’ve always been motivated by word-of-mouth. In an over-marketed society, people are looking for authenticity, so when a friend tells you something you’re more likely to respond.”
Others in the MSUAA are making an impact in social media, including John Hill, executive director of alumni career services, who recently provided testimony to a state legislative committee on the use of social media, and Tim Bograkos, young alumni coordinator, who regularly posts flip videos of young alumni activities on the MSU Alumni channel in YouTube. MSU Advancement, which includes both University Development and the MSU Alumni Association, hosts a Flickr site where Spartans can view photos of events such as the Alamo Bowl trip. And MSU’s College of Communication Arts & Sciences, led by Dean Pamela Whitten and a number of expert faculty members, remains on the national cutting edge of social media research.
The MSU Alumni Association currently boasts a presence in social media—with 2,800 subscribed to its Facebook account (vs. 40,000 for MSU), 3,700 followers on Twitter, and more than 18,000 on Linked-In. An MSUAA channel on YouTube has gained more than 1,500 subscribers in three months. Westerman also authors numerous blogs and produces many Webcasts related to MSU and the association. He has created msustream.com, a live-streaming site where, for example, in April alumni around the globe tuned in to an MSUAA-sponsored social media lecture by Qualman on campus. The newly designed MSU Alumni Association homepage (alumni.msu.edu) prominently features social media logos along with live chat and Skype, a Web-based video calling system.
One powerful aspect of social media is its “viral” component, where message recipients keep passing it on to others; a recent tweet about an MSUAA co-sponsored IBM recruitment fair, for example, was re-tweeted at least 40 times. Twitter, created in 2006, has made the cover of Time magazine and the word “tweet” is now widely used as a verb much like “google.”
“If you have 100 followers on Twitter, and they each average 100 followers, then potentially every tweet you make can reach 10,000 people,” says John Hill of the viral nature of micro-blogging, which reaches not just those with computers but also the growing numbers who use 3G mobile devices. “How much does it cost? Nothing.”
Westerman and Hill have more than 1,000 followers each on Twitter. Others with significant Twitter followings include Tim Bograkos, young alumni coordinator; Dave Isbell, coordinator of alumni services; and Laurie Robison, assistant director for marketing and membership services. According to Twitter Grader, an online algorithm that measures the impact of tweets—weighing such metrics as the number of followers, retweets, updates and click-throughs—five twitterers from the MSU Alumni Association rank among the Top 50 from East Lansing. (For a comprehensive listing of MSU sites in social media, visit www.msu.edu/social.)
More than 122,000 MSU alumni participate in Linked-In; about 18,500 of them are connected to the MSU Alumni Association group, making it the fifth largest college or university Linked-In group in the world.
Although many alumni use social media, some are less familiar with the evolving networks. Accordingly, Hill and Isbell have spent considerable time training alumni on using social media; in the past year they have given more than 180 presentations engaging some 18,000 people, mostly at alumni events.
“I recently gave a presentation in St. Louis about career networking and tweets pop up in Twitter reacting to the presentation in real time,” says Hill. “It’s the coolest thing on the block, but it’s just one of many communication mechanisms.
“What is really cool is that at the end, social media allows you to develop personal relationships where you eventually put a face to someone you first connected with online.”
Westerman can cite many examples of similar outcomes. “There is a store in Las Vegas that sells shoes and the whole operation grew out of social media,” he says. “The company’s CEO is very knowledgeable about social media. The value-added he provides is the opportunity for his customers to give immediate feedback.”
As a group vice president at Comcast, Westerman was one of the most social media savvy executives in the cable business. He literally turned around Comcast’s bad customer service reputation by leveraging Twitter, gaining 1,500 followers, some of whom actually became friends. He plans to similarly engage alumni.
“You have to listen to people, act quickly to solve problems, and be transparent about what you are doing,” says Westerman. “There is a risk involved. I can give you examples of companies that blew it when they scoffed at complaints instead of handling it right. You can’t control communication in a top-down, one-way manner. You have to engage people in a two-way conversation.”
A good illustration of how social media works occurred early this year. Someone posted online a Spartan helmet image that was being considered by MSU and athletics sponsor Nike as a replacement for the helmet design. The new, proposed image was widely disseminated to Spartan Nation through social media and generated instant opposition in Facebook. Within days, more than 18,000 users joined “Just Don’t—No New Nike-Influenced Spartan Helmet.” Countless others voiced their opposition via talk radio, message boards, and letters to the editor. Shortly thereafter MSU athletics announced that its rebranding effort would revolve around the current Spartan helmet design, which was created in the late 1970s.
“This shows how difficult it is to control what happens in social media,” notes Westerman. “The trick is to engage alumni in conversation first and that way you can get ahead of the curve.”
One curve Westerman wants to get ahead of is membership growth in the MSU Alumni Association, which he wants to dramatically increase. He believes that social media can play a role in helping achieve his goal of doubling the current membership to 68,000. He wants to position the MSUAA as one’s “personal network for life,” that is, as a network that can help Spartans land a job after college, help them get settled in a new community when they move, help them find Spartan friends wherever they go, provide avenues for continuing education, and so on. He believes that concept will sell to alumni, partly because he himself found the MSUAA helpful to him at every stage of his personal life.
“We need to ask, what do alumni get for their $45 annual investment in the MSUAA?” he says. “What is the value-added? We need to redesign our customer-acquisition campaign to communicate to our new graduates what the value-adds are. We need to reinforce the value-adds to those whose memberships have lapsed. We need a new retention strategy.
“Social media has its place. It’s cool, but its importance can be overblown. Over time, you have to provide the value-added. Then, as some alumni buy in, they can and will show that value to their friends via social media.”
Groves believes social media will require advancement professionals to do a better job listening to alumni and donors.
“When I read a news story online, I always go to the comments,” he says. “You have to get past the flamers, but generally, the comments help you understand better what people think. In the world of social media, we need to be better prepared and be faster on our feet. If we aren’t responsive, we die.”
Westerman likes to describe himself as the MSU Alumni Association’s “chief evangelist,” a term popularized by Guy Kawasaki, Apple Computer’s former marketing guru, and now widely used by Silicon Valley technology companies. A self-described geek, he has enlisted the help of many Spartans who have expertise in the new technology. For example, he had assembled one group to help design an MSUAA app for iPod and iPad users (an “app” refers to an application software program that helps the user to perform specific tasks). He has enlisted the help of alumni such as Jim Alexander, the former Weather Channel executive who invented the text crawl (the scrolling text across the bottom of the screen) in television broadcasts. He’s assembling a team to find out how alumni perceive the MSUAA, and how the MSUAA can better communicate its value. He created an MSUAA Wiki for internal use that can eventually become public. Lastly, he has tapped into the expertise in MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences, where many faculty are pushing the envelope of social media study and research.
“At the end of the day, you have to find new ways to add value to the world,” he says. “It’s about the friendships and relationships that you have gained.”
Westerman believes it’s very appropriate for MSU to be a leader in social media because he believes it replicates the model used by agricultural extension.
“You saw people helping people, basically,” he says. “The content was in the form of brochures, the location or point of presence was in every county, and the service was free. We provided useful information to make life better. People tend to remember it and we hope one day they will invest in it.
“We’re investing in many things that will add value for alumni. We hope that alumni will communicate that value to others. The most effective selling device is a testimonial from a friend you trust. I believe that eventually we will make our value clear and the entire Spartan Nation will want to be a part of us and invest in us.”
MSUAA’S TOP FIVE TWITTERERS
MSUScottW Scott Westerman, MSUAA executive director
MSUAA John John Hill, director, Alumni Career Services
Daveisbell Dave Isbell, Career Services coordinator
timbograkos Tim Bograkos, Young Alumni coordinator
LoloRobison Laurie Robison, assistant director, Marketing and Membership Services
MSUAA SHORTCUTS
msutwitter.net
msulinkedin.net
msufacebook.net
