Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Using Social Networking Sites To Connect with Chemistry Alumni Steven C. Farmer* Department of Chemistry, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California 94928, United States ABSTRACT: Some recent successes connecting with and tracking chemistry alumni using the social networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn are described. This communication provides tips on how to develop digital alumni networking sites, offers ideas on content, and reports on their effectiveness and will be of interest to any chemistry faculty member who is interested in increasing their department’s ability to connect with and track alumni.
KEYWORDS: Upper-Division Undergraduate, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Enrichment/Review Materials, Professional Development
A
contact information, current job position, current connections, personal photos, and educational background. A popular feature on Facebook is the ability to share personal notes with friends. LinkedIn is also a social networking Web site; however, it was specifically designed to make business contacts. LinkedIn member profiles typically include current job position, past job positions, professional contacts, and educational background. LinkedIn, similar to Facebook, allows members to post notes; however, there is a short limit to the length.
valuable resource for chemical education comes from tracking alumni because their input can be used for curriculum assessment1−3 and they can serve as examples to current students.4 Usually, traditional mailing lists have been used to maintain contact with alumni; however, these can be expensive and slow. Social networking sites have been shown to have many uses for chemists.5−7 In this case, they offer an inexpensive and effective way to maintain contact with alumni and provide them with benefits that are not possible using a mail-based system. For instance, job opportunities sent to our department from businesses interested in hiring our graduates can quickly be disseminated. Also, these sites can serve as a hub for alumni to maintain connections with each other and faculty. The benefits to the department are also significant. Because many alumni list their current job positions in their social network profiles, it is easy to track changes without having to make formal contact. This has allowed us to maintain an accurate list of our alumni’s current positions, which has been vital in showing our department’s teaching effectiveness in grant applications. In addition, these sites allow for reconnecting with alumni whose contact information has been not been properly updated, which is virtually impossible using mail-based tracking systems. Because most of our older alumni are well established, making contact with them has provided our department with possible sources of donations, valuable business contacts, and excellent seminar speakers.
■
■
STARTING AN ALUMNI SITE IN FACEBOOK OR LINKEDIN For anyone interesting in starting a departmental alumni site in Facebook or LinkedIn, reading some background literature on how these sites operate8 is recommended. Also, many campuses have defined personnel for developing social networking sites. Meeting with these people to help develop the department’s alumni sites is also encouraged. For initially developing the sites, it is best to have a defined site master in the department. Because these connections are long-term, the site master should be a young tenured faculty member, who has a good rapport with most students. This person should formally join both Facebook and LinkedIn with a personal account. Some departments, especially those with more of a research focus, may find it difficult to find a faculty member willing to make the time commitment necessary to become the site master. In this case, it might be advantageous for some departments to have staff members or students maintaining their sites. Regardless, there should be a faculty member overseeing the process to maintain continuity and integrity.
FACEBOOK VERSUS LINKEDIN
Although there are many social media Web sites, efforts were focused on two: Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a social networking Web site originally intended to form connections from people’s personal life. However, the inclusion of Facebook pages has allowed for businesses and organizations to also connect with users. Facebook member profiles typically include © 2013 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: April 10, 2013 673
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed300551q | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 673−675
Journal of Chemical Education
Communication
Facebook is very dynamic, so it is important to frequently update a Facebook alumni site to maintain interest from the members. A prime way to improve a Facebook site is to get current and emeritus faculty to join. This is an important draw to further alumni participation, and it can be rewarding to see teacher and student reunited, sometimes after decades. It is important to note that some faculty members will be hesitant about interacting with students online; however, others enjoy the opportunity. Because of this, colleagues should be encouraged, but not forced to participate. Because Facebook has an open format any faculty member can freely participate, which offers some interesting collaboration possibilities. In our case, all of the current and emeritus faculty who have Facebook profiles joined the alumni site and have participated in varying degrees. Regardless, there still needs to be a primary, passionate site master to continually drive development of the site content. Some suggestions regarding content for a Facebook site are posting pictures from current departmental events, posting old pictures involving emeritus faculty and older alumni, posting job opportunities, posting department news, forming links to other Facebook alumni pages from your campus, forming links to Facebook pages that promote alumni businesses, posting information about departmental seminars, and posting amusing chemistry photos found on the Internet. It is interesting to note that alumni often contribute to the content by posting chemistry-based cartoons or job postings from their current employers. Unfortunately, the professional nature of LinkedIn leaves less room for creative site development. Mainly, our LinkedIn alumni site has been used for posting job opportunities, department news, and information about departmental seminars. To track alumni, an Excel file can be generated with columns for the following information: name, year of graduation, current position, degree type, address, e-mail address, and phone number. When links are made the information can be entered. To ensure this information is current as possible, links should be periodically checked to see if any information has changed. Also, it is important to keep track of contact attempts to avoid repeated invitations. To do this, the following columns were added: Facebook invitation sent, Facebook invitation accepted, LinkedIn invitation sent, LinkedIn invitation accepted. When an invitation is sent and when it is accepted the appropriate box is checked.
For both Facebook and LinkedIn, there are two main forms alumni sites could take: personal accounts and pages. A personal account in both Facebook and LinkedIn allows for direct linking with alumni profiles, which provides access to valuable information such as current job positions and contact information. A personal account also allows for link requests to be directly sent to the alumni, along with a welcome message, which has proved to be a valuable tool in forming connections. The downside is that one person has control over the site, which could make switching site masters difficult. Another option is to form the alumni site as a page. The benefits of pages are that multiple users can be set up as administrators, which allows for easy transitions between site masters. This might be beneficial to larger departments that might want staff members to maintain any social media sites. Also, a page can be set up separately from a personal account, which will avoid any issues with mixing personal and work related contacts. Pages work well to connect with newly graduated students. However, a page’s lack of the ability to directly send link requests makes connecting with older alumni almost impossible. For a member to link with pages in Facebook or LinkedIn, they must find and join the page themselves. From our experience, this rarely occurs.
■
FINDING, KEEPING, AND TRACKING ALUMNI SITE MEMBERS Obtaining members for these sites usually involves finding the alumni’s profiles using some form of search followed by an invitation to link. In Facebook, the site’s search function can be used with the alumni’s name along with important keywords, such as “chemistry” or the name of the school. To look for alumni with LinkedIn profiles a search can be done using a standard search engine for the alumni’s name, the word chemistry, and the name of the school. If alumni have a LinkedIn profile, it will typically appear as one of the top hits. After being located, alumni should be sent a link request along with an invitation message that explains the purpose of the site along with the benefits of connecting. An example invitation is shown in Box 1. Because alumni are constantly joining Box 1. An Example Link Request Hi. I’m one of the current Sonoma State University chemistry faculty and I’m trying to link all of the SSU chemistry alumni on Facebook. Accepting the site’s friendship will allow you to see our posts about potential jobs and help you to connect with your fellow SSU chemistry alumni. Also, most of the current and retired SSU chemistry faculty have Facebook profiles if you want to see what they are up to.
■
RESULTS OF THE ALUMNI SITES To examine how effective LinkedIn and Facebook are as potential sources for connecting with alumni, the number and percentage of alumni from various time periods who have profiles in either of these sites was compiled (Table 1). It is clear that Facebook is preferred over LinkedIn in every group. However, it was noticed that many alumni have a profile in one site and not the other. This means that it is best to maintain alumni sites in both Facebook and LinkedIn. It should be noted that the percentage of alumni who maintain a LinkedIn profile remains fairly consistent throughout all the groups. However, alumni after 2004 show a marked increase in those who maintain a Facebook profile peaking at 94% rate for alumni after 2009. Overall, using both of these networking sites, contact was made with 231/562 (41%) of our chemistry alumni, which shows the process was successful.
Steve This site is fully endorsed by the SSU chemistry department and is maintained by Dr. Steve Farmer Facebook and LinkedIn, searches should be periodically repeated. In addition to these searches, members can be found by publicizing the formation of these sites in departmental newsletters and on the department’s homepage. Because most campuses have alumni pages already developed within Facebook and LinkedIn, linking the department’s alumni site with them will increase exposure and help to locate new members. 674
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed300551q | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 673−675
Journal of Chemical Education
Communication
Table 1. Number of Chemistry Alumni with a Social Network Profile Year of Graduation
Total Number of Alumni
1964−1969 1970−1979 1980−1989 1990−1999 2000−2003 2004−2008 2009−2012 Total
10 122 129 131 43 58 69 562
■
Number of Alumni with a LinkedIn Profile 0 10 17 22 11 12 12 84
(8.2%) (13%) (17%) (26%) (21%) (17%) (15%)
Number of Alumni with a Facebook Profile 0 12 (9.8%) 27 (218%) 31 (24%) 12 (28%) 38 (66%) 65 (94%) 185 (33%)
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■
REFERENCES
(1) Jackson, P. T.; Walters, J. P. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 1019−1025. (2) Gendjova, A.; Kamusheva, A. Khimiya 2012, 21, 202−214. (3) Kerr, S.; Runquist, O. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 231−233. (4) Hill, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1978, 55, 101. (5) Sweedler, J. V. Anal. Chem. 2012, 84, 3039. (6) Byers, J. H. Chem. Educ. 2010, 15, 394−397. (7) Groat, R. K.; Jacobsen, E. K. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 1168−1169. (8) Facebook Help Center. http://www.facebook.com/help/?guide (accessed Apr 2013), LinkedIn Learning Center. http://help.linkedin. com (accessed Apr 2013).
675
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed300551q | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 673−675
