Colleges and universities who continue to struggle with keeping alumni in the loop and find themselves at a loss to compete for attention in this age of sophisticated internet and social networking technology will learn how to increase participation, contributions and registrations through online alumni communities.

According to Don Philabaum, alumni associations must be able to effectively communicate with students and alumni through the communication tools currently being utilized by active students:

Alumni have been participating in online communities for nearly a decade now reaching a peak of 180,000,000 registered users on MySpace alone in late 2006
Over the past three years, an average of 83 percent of students have spent 79 minutes per day updating data, connecting and socializing with classmates on Facebook.
Nearly 70 percent of America are "always on" due to their use of broadband
The behavior of Americans has changed from just three years ago that finds them replacing other entertainment options to "live" online."

Social networks provide a variety of web community portal features that let users create profiles, describe their interests, share their thoughts in blogs or postings, and connect with other people, among other things. In his book, Alumni Web Strategies, Don Philabaum shows college and university administrators how to incorporate these same features to create an interactive network for students to continue after they graduate. Some of his key points include:

1.   If alumni communities want to be in the game they have to create an online community that is unique and unavailable from other generic online communities they have to choose from
2.   Virtually no alumni association is thinking about writing a plan for developing their online communities. They really don't have a direction or where they're going or when they get there. The book helps to create an internet strategy so they know where they want to go.
3.   Traditional alumni magazines are lavish and beautiful but no one knows if they're really being read regardless of how much is spent on them. Given that overall readership of the magazine industry has been on the decline, why not invest this money in developing an online community website for students and alumni. The book will help alumni to track and measure the results of their websites and how their online community uses it. There is a strong return on investment
4.   Alumni affairs could be engaging more alumni via the Internet than they do with traditional events and activities
5.   Advancement is losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions by not developing a more NET-Centered alumni engagement program

Alumni Web Strategies is published by Morgan James and available for sale in paperback at $39.95. Customers and previous attendees of The Internet Strategies Group webinars can place early order discounts.

Don Philabaum is President of The Internet Strategies Group, a distance education forum that provides an audience for forward thinking industry professionals to share their best practices, ideas and concepts. Group participants receive one on one education, access to peers trying to solve the same issues and a commitment from the group to make sure they succeed with their solutions implementation. Independent industry leaders, receive a platform to expand their forward thinking ideas and concepts within their industry which expands their recognition and financially rewards them. Additional information can be found at www.internetstrategiesgroup.com. For questions, call 1-800-525-6005, ext. 216; or email.