Building and maintaining relationships with alumni through social media : a comparative study

Abstract

Online communication is considered as an ideal platform for the implementation of two-way, ethical communication, which can lead to strong, long-term and mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders (Grunig et al., 1992:36; Grunig et al., 2002:2; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010:60). In addition, various authors point out that social media, as a core mode of online communication, can provide numerous opportunities for strategic public relations to achieve the above-mentioned goals (Diga & Kelleher, 2009:440; Grunig, 2009:1; Makrez, 2011:230; Solis, 2010:28). In particular, social media offers tertiary education institutions a cost-effective opportunity to communicate and foster relationships with alumni after graduation, by frequently staying in touch, and building social media communities (Kowalik, 2011:218). Worldwide, higher education institutions increasingly recognise the need to focus on their reputation confronted by a more volatile tertiary environment, with global competition for students and financial contributions (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006:338). The University of Pennsylvania (Penn, USA) and North-West University Potchefstroom Campus (NWU Pukke, South Africa) both emphasise their relationships with alumni as an avenue to secure the future of the universities. They employ various social media platforms to build these relationships. Examining these two universities in a cross-national comparative study, allowed the researcher to analyse, explain, and make generalisations on social media’s function of building and maintaining relationships, and creating communities, with alumni (Hantrais, 1995; Livingstone, 2003:478; Lor, 2011:6). To understand the complexities in using social media for alumni relations, a theoretical framework was constructed that combines various theories (Pennings et al., 2006:3). Both the domains of corporate communication management and social media usage were investigated from the perspective of the systems theory (Hon & Grunig, 1999:12; Broom et al., 2000:15,17). In particular, the stakeholder relationship management theory identifies relationship outcomes and relationship building strategies that can be followed while adhering to two-way symmetrical guidelines (Ledingham & Bruning, 1998:62; Hon & Grunig, 1999:43-46). In addition, the present study followed the guidelines of Waters et al. (2009:102) for the cultivation of social media relationships. These were used in conjunction with other guidelines on creating a social media community (Lipshcultz, 2015:76). Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were combined to obtain sufficient in-depth data and ensure the validity and reliability of the research (Babbie & Mouton, 2001:275; Lor, 2011:14). A literature study and qualitative content analysis were undertaken focusing on the respective universities’ social media pages. This was done to add to the conceptual understanding of social media usage for alumni relationships and community building. The qualitative research was concluded through semi-structured interviews with the alumni and social media managers at Penn and NWU Pukke respectively. Thereafter, electronic questionnaires were sent to both universities’ alumni. The main findings of the present study indicated firstly, that tertiary education institutions can utilise social media effectively to build alumni relations and create a social media community. Secondly, it was found that not all the relationship and community building guidelines can be achieved within a single social media platform. Therefore, a combination of such platforms should be employed, and aligned with the usage patterns of the alumni. This implies that a social media strategy is crucial to manage the combined social media that is employed to achieve optimum engagement with alumni. Finally, it was found that social media usage should focus on building a community, rather than aiming to establish and maintain individual relationships with alumni