The success of your corporate alumni network hinges on how engaged the community members are. This is because engagement ties directly into their willingness to help you achieve the goals you set for your alumni program.
If you’re planning on surveying your alumni to gauge how hot or cold they feel about your outreach efforts and engagement strategies, there are a few best practices to consider. After all, you don’t want this to be another unopened email about whether or not your alumni open your emails.
In this guide, we’ll explore what it takes to design and create a corporate alumni engagement survey. As a bonus, we’ve included some sample survey questions that you can tweak to suit your circumstances.
Why Survey Corporate Alumni?
Alumni form a significant part of a business’s talent network. A strong and engaged community is ready to extend a hand to help the organization achieve its goals, be it for recruitment, expertise, or sales and marketing purposes.
This is not forgetting that the people in the network have their own connections, opening up an even greater world of opportunities to tap into. As the saying goes, it’s not about what you know, but rather who you know.
To have these types of resources at the ready, you need to ensure that your network is engaged and getting a return on their participation. No one is going to voluntarily give up their time for an organization they have left – they need to know there is something in it for them.
Even if by outward appearances your alumni seem engaged, there is always room for improvement. When you learn that your alumni network has low engagement levels, you need to find out why they are low so that you may improve those levels and get the maximum benefit out of your network.
An alumni network left to its own devices is of no use to your business. While your former employees may enjoy the odd bit of networking they can sooner do this on LinkedIn, leaving you with an empty platform and zero sense of community. Understanding your alumni audience and their needs is the first step in creating meaningful and long-term relations.
How To Create An Alumni Engagement Survey (+ Sample Questions)
In the sections below, we’ll highlight the type of questions you should include in your alumni engagement survey. Ask alumni to submit a rating between 0% and 100%, with 100 being the highest positive sentiment for each of your engagement questions.
Determine Community Engagement
Use these questions to gauge how your internal community perceives your brand. Scores for these should be high. Any score below 70% is a red flag that your alumni community isn’t engaging with its members.
The following questions, referred to as community engagement questions, are a fantastic hot-cold test. They will help you determine how successful your current alumni engagement strategy is.
1: “Am I proud to be part of This question focuses on the pride an alumnus feels in the community they belong to. This question is often called the barbeque test. In other words, would your alumni be proud to talk about your community while at a backyard barbeque? 2: “Do I see myself being a part of this community for at least another ten years?” This question pertains directly to member retention. It helps you determine how long members plan to stay part of your community. The more active and better engaged a community is, the higher membership retention will be. The direct time frame listed in this question will help participants better imagine the future. It should lead to more accurate responses. Typically, scores should average around 60% to 65% for this question. These questions will help determine how well your current engagement strategy’s objectives are shared with your alumni. 3: “Do the community leaders and ambassadors keep me informed about what’s happening?” Communication is critical to your community’s success. Clear, concise communication builds a strong foundation that’ll help to keep your alumni engaged. The larger your community grows, the more critical it’ll become to stay connected and communicate effectively with them. This question should get a score of around 65% to 75%. If the average score falls below this range, it means you may have a communication issue within your alumni community. 4: “Do the community leaders have a shared vision that motivates me?” This question is typically referred to as a higher-level question. That means the results of this question will be influenced directly by the responses found in the previous question. Suppose your communication with your community is on point and scored high. In that case, you’ll typically get high scores for this question as well. However, it’s not only about the message being communicated well. Instead, this question will help determine whether your community’s vision aligns with what motivates and inspires your alumni and influences your alumni engagement. Suppose you find that scores for both questions are low. In that case, it’s essential first to improve your communication, then to find the right vision and goals to share with your alumni community. The following questions will help you better determine the social media habits and preferred communication platforms that your specific alumni community may have. 5: “Do I follow [alumni community name] news on [social media platform]?” This question will help you determine how effective your communication and engagement is on a particular social media platform. The goal here is to learn more about the social media habits of your community members. Having this information on hand will help you formulate an effective engagement strategy. Typically, scores should be between 65% and 85%. A lower score may indicate that your social media presence may need some attention. 6: “Do I enjoy receiving news and updates on the [alumni community name] alumni platform?” The answer to this question will help you determine whether your alumni are using your alumni platform to engage with content. If the score is below 70%, try to personalize the content more to ensure it is relevant and engaging to the receiver. 7: “Do I find that the news and stories shared with me are relevant?” With this question, you’re attempting to gauge how aligned your content is with your alumni members. Higher scores will indicate that your community shares the same values, goals, and ideals. Lower scores may indicate that you need to change your content to engage with your community better. However, keep in mind that other factors also influence the score for this question. If your communication scores are poor, whether in general or on a specific social media platform, the scores for this question may also be poor. Finally, end your engagement survey with a couple of open-ended questions. You’ll allow your alumni to make suggestions and address tangible things by doing this. Here are some examples: “What are some things you like about [alumni community name]?” “What are some things that you don’t like about [alumni community name]?” “Is there anything else you feel we should’ve included in this survey?” These questions will highlight your strengths and weaknesses and reveal opportunities where your online community platform can grow and ultimately thrive. There’s a lot at stake when creating an effective alumni engagement survey. Information is power, and the more information you obtain with your survey, the more power you’ll have to improve your community. The first step in finding out what alumni want is to use the right corporate alumni platform in your business. Using the data and tools it provides, you can engage your alumni with timely content and communication that adds value to their lives and ultimately your business. Get in touch with our team today to see our platform in action and see how Aluminate Community Builder can help build your community.
Determine Communication Effectiveness
Gauge Tech And Communication Preferences
End With Open-Ended Questions
Conclusion
