The key to a thriving and successful alumni networking is immersive alumni engagement. Alumni events are a great way for your institution to leave a lasting impression on alumni. Hosting an event can be challenging for the institution because of the high costs of logistics and management.
Despite spending heavily, institutions have this perpetual fear of experiencing low alumni turnout rates for the events. Instead of conducting physical events, your college can opt for virtual formats, which are easy to host. Alumni can join these events from home or work, with minimal cost for hosting. They can still have just as much fun as they would at in-person events.
To ease your event idea hunting, we have come up with six effective online alumni event ideas to engage your alumni thoroughly!
#1 Virtual Reunions
Reunions are textbook alumni events that alumni always look forward to attending. Social media platforms are a great way for alumni to reconnect with old friends. They can also chat with favorite teachers and relive nostalgic memories.
Making it online can also provide the same to the alumni. Your alumni are scattered across the world, making it tough for them to attend a physical reunion in person. Virtual alumni reunions will boost alumni participation and make the gathering unforgettable for the involved parties.
Make sure the time and date work for alumni in different time zones, even though the event is online. Weekends work exceptionally well for them. You can’t spring this upon your alumni; prepare them for it. Send out attractive invitations, personalized emails, and reminders well in advance.
Share old photos and yearbook quotes on social media, and have top alumni talk about the event in a video clip. To pique their interest, give them the event itinerary a couple of days before the reunion happens.
Schedule a vote of thanks by the chairman or any top executive of the institution. Conduct a post-event survey to get feedback from the attendees. Send follow-up emails with highlights, a recorded video of the event, and photos. Post reunion photos on the institution’s social media accounts and encourage alumni to post on their accounts, too.
#2 Fitness Classes
People around the world are embracing virtual sessions. Online platforms offer almost everything available offline. People prefer working out of their homes rather than going somewhere else.
Your institution can do the same with your alumni. Online fitness classes are a fantastic way to mobilize alumni interaction with fellow ones and alma mater. Instead of hiring someone from outside, your college can ask a fitness expert who graduated from the institution to train.
Your school or college can float a form on the alumni portal, and interested alumni can fill it out. If there are numerous responses, divide them into categories such as Yoga, Zumba, Dance Fitness, Aerobics, Boxing, etc. Then, you can make a schedule and share it with the alumni. It needn’t be frequent; two or three classes a month will do.
To amp up their participation, alumni hosting these sessions can conduct competitions and give out rewards for winners. You can also post stats on social media platforms to get new alumni to join.
Encourage alumni fitness experts to share their stories, tips, and healthy eating advice to promote healthy lifestyles among alumni. The idea promotes alumni engagement and helps alumni to stay fit at the same time.
#3 Watch Parties
Your alumni might have liked going to movies with their friends. Who won’t love them?
Hosting virtual film screenings is a great idea to boost alumni engagement. Alumni enjoy watching a movie and catching up with old friends on a Saturday night. Your school or college can be the one to give this memorable experience to your alumni.
Your school can pick a movie that alumni like or one made by alumni for a special event. If not, let the alumni select a film for themselves. Put up a poll on social media accounts and WhatsApp groups encouraging alumni to choose a movie of their choice. Once you lock the movie, select a favorable date and time.
Promote these fun virtual watch parties through interesting posts about the movie like Did You Know, and guess the song will hold the alumni’s attention. Send creative invitations and reminders to the alumni.
Give alumni clear instructions on how to join the event using watch party or video conferencing tools for a seamless experience. Provide a little context about the movie so that alumni become familiar with it. Alumni can choose a film made by alumni, and participate in panel discussions and Q&A sessions with the filmmaker. This allows attendees to interact with alumni.
#4 Trivia Nights – (Virtual Reunion Idea)
Take your alumni back to their student days by conducting nostalgic quizzes and trivia nights with questions related to the alma mater. Put up old photos of the alumni, lecturers, campuses, fests, and classrooms and ask the alumni to answer. You can use chats or polls to receive answers from the alumni. Encourage alumni to share their favorite memories, experiences, photos, incidents, and stories during the meeting.
These quizzes needn’t necessarily be about anything related to alma mater. Your school or college can decide on a topic and inform the alumni through invitations via email, newsletter, social media, and alumni portal. Create an RSVP/registration form to know how many will be attending.
Alumni can participate either as a group or individually. Prefer the participation groups as it allows networking between the alumni. Assign a quirky quiz master to liven up the event. It can either be a student or anybody from the alumni office.
The quiz master or moderator can host interesting rounds like a school round where questions about alma mater’s history, notable alumni, achievements can be asked. A general knowledge round, picture round where alumni can guess the fellow ones.
Give breaks in between and assign breakout rooms for team discussions and alumni interactions. Celebrate the winning team by awarding them gifts in the end and close the event with a vote of thanks.
#5 Virtual Mentoring Sessions
Virtual alumni events have the potential to project alumni as mentors. Your alumni must have had various professional experiences that can be useful to the students. They can guide students on current industrial trends, courses essential to get a decent placement, and how to crack interviews via resume review and interview preparation. This idea can be a great branding exercise for alumni to showcase themselves as mentors in their respective fields.
Your school or college can encourage interested alumni to share their updated resumes and make separate lists for each department. Then, share these lists with the students, who can choose their mentors based on their requirements. Based on the responses from the involved parties, you can facilitate one-on-one, group mentoring sessions.
Share meet links and schedule a time that is convenient for the alumni. You can also schedule an informal mixer between mentors and mentees so that they can get to know each other before the guidance starts.
For resume review and interview preparation, you can provide guidance from alumni HRs and CXOs to all the students in their pre-final and final years. If your students are faring well, there is a high chance that your alumni might hire them.
#6 Alumni Interviews
Your school or college might have alumni scaling high in their professional spheres. They will have numerous contacts and access to many resources for your institution to tap into. Inviting successful alumni to share their insights with other alumni and students can help boost your institution’s brand and visibility. Your college or university can host interviews, roundtables with them.
Shortlist your college’s top alumni and approach them based on the topic you want to address. It can be industrial insights, professional development, career choices, upskilling courses, or even personal experiences. Your speaker can be an established public speaker, the CXO of a company, a celebrity, or an entrepreneur. The moderator/host can be a fellow entrepreneur or an experienced person in the same field as an interviewee who can ask some interesting questions.
Send invites to all the alumni and get a small video bite from the speaker to mobilize alumni. To create a strong marketing campaign, add colorful banners to the website and alumni portal. Share posts that highlight the speaker’s accomplishments. Send emails and reminders to the attendees.
Host Q&A, interactive sessions where attendees can ask questions via live chat. The host or the moderator can mediate between the speaker and the audience. If a lot of alumni attend, your school or college might decide to make this event a regular series. Speeches would then occur every two to three months.
In Short
Virtual alumni events are important to the success of your institution’s alumni engagement. These events help you to stay connected with alumni. Hosting virtual events is easy, affordable, and effective. Institutions can save money by avoiding unnecessary expenses.
Alumni are more likely to attend events that are convenient for them. This can lead to increased attendance and engagement. Make sure your former students are happy with the events you plan by thinking about what alumni like and want.
Vaave helps institutions and corporate entities across the globe in realizing the power of alumni and offers strategies for engaging them. We offer a full-fledged alumni management ecosystem that helps you to leverage alumni to its fullest.
Drop in your details at hello@vaave.com & +91 91006 88850, we will get in touch with you at the drop of a hat!