Here are some tips to leverage your graduate network.

1. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
How to Leverage Your
Graduates For A Professional
Network?
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2. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
Overview
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Showcase your Lifetime Support System
Convert grads into active alumni
Optimize social network engagement
Enlist alumni for student recruitment
Measure results
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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3. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
1. Showcase your Lifetime Support System

By taking the perspective of education as a lifecycle, you
can appreciate that student relations must be mutually
beneficial to be sustaining.

This requires:
 a college-wide commitment to long-term student engagement
 integrating alumni associations with university policy
 emphasizing this intention in official communications
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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4. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
1. Showcase your Lifetime Support System

Alumni networks can open windows on outside innovations
with cross-pollination opportunities

Showcasing your alumni support on your website speaks to
prospective students and even influences how current
students view their evolving role

Remember that brands are built over time so commit to the
long haul
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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5. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
2. Convert grads into active alumni

Alumni engagement can begin as soon as a student enrolls
(if not earlier) and extend throughout their lives

Offer universal membership to alumni associations and take
the extra step to reach out to grads
 Alumni associations have been identified in various studies as
growth engines for overall institutional support
 They are the link between grads and the services and events of their
alma mater
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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6. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
2. Convert grads into active alumni

Listen to alumni and create resources to support their needs

High impact activities in top-tier markets, new technologies
to communicate, and efficiently managed alumni volunteer
programs are leading this change
 A LinkedIn page started by a University of Toronto graduate was
taken over by the school's administration last fall after it became too
large for them to manage
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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7. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
3. Optimize social network engagement

The boom in communication technology has made it easier
than ever to connect with graduates
 A 2012 survey revealed 83 percent of U.S. colleges and universities
used social media to engage alumni


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with 96 percent on Facebook
80 percent on Twitter
73 percent on YouTube
68 percent on LinkedIn
The latter can be mined by ambitious alumni outreach
programs to determine contact information by using the
school name in search criteria
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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8. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
4. Enlist alumni for student recruitment

Alumni pride is often driven by school reputation and
perceived equity of the diploma

In each year's convocation address, president of Nova
Scotia's St. Francis Xavier University Dr. Sean Riley says:
 "If you fall, a fellow Xaverian is there to pick you up."

The university has a particularly effective webpage for
alumni to support the recruitment effort
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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9. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
5. Measure results

Data measurement through quantifiable goals and analyticsdriven evidence ensure that your efforts are producing
results

Develop measurable outcomes, such as:
 increasing e-newsletter open rates to 20%
 sponsors for printed letter
 participation in special events

Making alumni relations a long-term priority will bring
benefits to student recruitment
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How to Leverage Your Graduates For A Professional Network
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10. How to Leverage Your Graduates For A
Professional Network?
Questions?
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