When conducting surveys of alumni at colleges and universities across the country, one of the questions that we pose is:  “How effective do you find the following means of communication to be in reaching you with information from the alumni foundation/association?” One of the means of communication is: “Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).” The answer choices are: “very effective,” “somewhat effective,” “not effective,” and “don’t know/unsure.” This post examines the perceptions of more than 55,000 respondents from three institutions in the aggregate and school-by-school.

College 1 is part of one of the nation’s largest systems of higher education in the United States and located in an urban area. With an enrollment of approximately 30,000, more than ninety percent of its students come from in-state. Nearly 10,000 alumni responded to the survey.

College 2 is a small, public university that was founded in the 1990s. The institution prides itself on making higher education accessible to traditionally underserved and low-income populations. Nearly seventy percent of its students receive financial aid, and more than half of its students are the first generation of their families to attend college. More than 700 alumni participated in the survey.

College 3 is a top-ranked public university in a quintessential college town. The institution provides abundant undergraduate research opportunities, boasts top-ranked athletic teams, and offers a plethora of top-flight programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. A truly global and diverse institution, its population of more than 40,000 students comes from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. More than 45,000 took part in the study.

Here is how participants at all of the schools responded in the aggregate:

In total, 58% of the alumni viewed social media as ineffective, or they weren’t certain of its effectiveness. However, perhaps a more telling statistic is that 43% of all respondents viewed social media as ineffective.

In terms of percentages, the alumni at School 2 perceived of social media in the most positive light. This is interesting because School 2 is relatively new and therefore has a young alumni population. Could this be a generational effect? It is possible that social media is embraced more by this alumni population because social media channels are not as “new” to this group as such communication channels are to much of the alumni population at the other institutions.

What neither of these charts show, however, is how perceptions of social media’s effectiveness was viewed by different segments of each institution’s respondents. More than half of Champions (the vocal, hat-wearing advocates of their alma maters) at all of the schools viewed social media channels as somewhat or very effective. The other segments (Friends and Acquaintances) viewed social media channels as ineffective or with uncertainty at all of the schools. This clear division of opinion across alumni segments highlights the importance of segmenting communication efforts to reach the right people via their preferred channels.