social media: the best thing to happen to university advancement since the invention of homecoming

That's right. While companies are struggling to adapt to social media marketing, university advancement teams are (or should be) rejoicing that we now have tools to enhance what we've always done best: build real relationships and make connections.

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Bill Lee, in this HBR article, rightly states: "traditional marketing is dead." However, peer-based, community-oriented marketing is now thriving because of social media. Lee reminds us to focus on two important things: 1. find influencers; and 2. give them social capital.

The influencers we've traditionally identified will likely be different than social media influencers. And that's a good thing, as we certainly need to focus on building more and better relationships with our stakeholders that don't have gray hair. We can give them social capital by empowering them with information and knowledge that will help them with their careers, their bosses, their employees, their businesses, their peers and their resumes. And then they can share this info and help others as well. We can provide them with value that will make them not only want to promote us, but also solidify a lifelong connection.

Mark Bonchek backs this up by stating that social media is a gift economy, unlike our traditional market economy. In a gift economy organizations must create social currencies related to our brand, and also earn status, not buy it. If we enable our constituents to connect with each other and with us in this way, we will build deep engagement with them that goes far beyond what traditional marketing could ever do.

Advancement teams at universities have long known that sustained growth is built through authentic customer relationships. We must therefore take advantage of every social media tool that makes sense in cultivating those alumni/student/donor relationships we've already begun. And we can reach so many more with social media marketing.

We're already ahead of the game. Let's keep the momentum going.