An overview of the LinkedIn Conference from April 2016. Interactive sharing event run by LinkedIn in conjunction with Birmingham Business School & the University of Birmingham. Audience of Careers Services, Alumni Relations and Marketing & Communications.

1. LinkedIn 3D for HE
Integrated approaches between Marcomms,
Careers & Alumni Relations
Post-Conference Summary
#LinkedIn3D
June 2016

2. LinkedIn 3D for HE
Conference Overview
• The conference ran in April 2016, hosted by Birmingham Business School,
University of Birmingham, UK
• The objective was to bring together Higher Education / University
representatives from different departments (Careers, Alumni Relations,
Marketing & Communications) in order to:
– Explore and share Challenges, Wins and Future needs in their own area
– Explore how they can work more effectively together across departments
• Event Summary and Agenda: (for link see Additional Resources at end)
– Morning : Welcome, Keynotes and Vertical sessions
– Afternoon: Key Themes sessions, “unconference” format, Wrap-up
• 125 delegates attended
• Twitter #LinkedIn3D

3. Contents
Themes
• Careers
• Community
• Content
• Academics
• Alumni
• International
Extras
• Additional Resources
• Useful Groups
• Contacts

4. Careers – the Challenges
• Coaching a shift from “online CV” to “networking &
career/employer research skills”
• How to best develop communities & build a “[careers] brand
within a [university] brand”
• Teaching digital literacy to millennials – what is the best way?
• Time constraints / efficiency – what to prioritise?
• Overcoming the “fear of making mistakes” that can be passed
from careers staff to students – too much attention on negative
aspects of social media
• Understanding overlap of stakeholders, how to work together
• Careers and alumni to share the generation of content

5. Careers – sharing the wins
• LinkedIn is an Intelligence gathering tool for career development;
the Alumni Tool gives legitimacy to careers advice, for finding
mentors, & volunteers
• LinkedIn bridges the gap between current students and alumni
• 'LinkedIn photo booth' at employability events
• Employers are global; LinkedIn enables careers staff to engage
globally
• Groups - Contacts not lost if staff member leaves
• Track DLHE non-responders and ask them to complete

6. Careers – development
feedback / requests
• LinkedIn Students app launching in UK in Autumn – designed to
help students explore career options:
https://lnkd.in/studentsapp
• Student / academic tariff for LinkedIn Premium would
encourage greater use (but students need to develop a strong
profile first to derive proper value)
• Analytics for Groups to judge engagement
• Ability to use a “Group ID” rather than personal profile in Group
communications
• Run more networking sessions / webinars for staff

7. Community
– the Challenges
• Joining the alumni page is a ‘rite of passage’ – it happens but
does not automatically inspire the person to engage with
content
• Justifying ROI of Groups without analytics/ visible engagement
• Idea of ‘successful group’ theoretical, no model examples
• How to overcome the lack of interaction in Groups – how to
generate meaningful, engaging content
• Deciding who should be allowed to be members of Groups

8. Community
– sharing the wins
• Successful Groups can be run by alumni volunteers (Durham)
• Your University Page (news feed), your website and other
channels, can all feed into Groups
• Creating weekly topics to get conversations started
• Networks enable students to connect with employers/alumni
globally

9. Community – development
feedback / requests
• Analytics for Groups to judge engagement
• Ability to enforce guidelines in breakaway Groups / get
breakaway groups to feed into parent alumni groups
• Leveraging more staff members to post / comment to
encourage engagement
• Using alumni volunteers to create more discussions

10. Content – the challenges
• Corporate Communications cannot control all social comment –
but how can it monitor, guide and positively influence activity
as much as possible?
• Comms still searching for the ideal tools to manage multiple
social channels
• How can Comms leverage a range of social content
contributors? E.g. from different faculties, departments, alumni,
students…
• How can Comms get VCs and Leaders to blog / post / contribute
content?

11. Content – sharing the wins
• Good content works on multiple platforms – don’t restrict to just Facebook
or just LinkedIn
• Be human - Don't be a robot: adapt your tone to increase engagement.
People and students respond better to people than logos
• Students and alumni are interested in campus imagery and video, such as
accommodation and memorable haunts – nostalgia is effective with alumni
engagement - e.g. SHU - Psalter Lane Art & Design building
• Good engagement user-generated content:
– Requesting alumni to share memories of graduation, photos - shows genuine connection
– Instagram takeover: letting students do the work – see this #SHUInsiders example
– The value of staff contribution - useful reference: "3-2-1: The art of employee-first content"
• Interactive video campus tour - good for several audiences (prospective students,
alumni etc) – plus “genuine” video gets more engagement - see Newcastle example
• Periscope v Facebook – see pros and cons in Matt Horne’s post

12. Content – the LinkedIn wins
• LinkedIn is a good place for showcasing research (top level) – this can then
link to more details / official repository
• LinkedIn now has #hashtags
– You can collate posts using the hashtag in the body
– e.g. search on #studentvoices (use the Posts filter for the results)
– (note : original URL works but is unwieldy; need to use a vanity url e.g. example)
• Sharing stories on LinkedIn University pages – Careers & Alumni Relations
work most effectively together (especially when able to leverage Academics!)
• Example of University using a Showcase page for specific audience content
= OU for Wales
• It's easy to post blogs on LinkedIn, and you can enhance your personal brand
as well as that of your institution (see here for more)

13. Content – development
feedback / requests
• In-tool analytics on social engagement with content
• Content Management & Scheduling - either in-tool or via 3rd party tools like Hootsuite
• Vanity URLs for university pages
• University Page Newsfeed - not lose posts after 30 days - ideally archive and retrieve
capability for page admin
• LinkedIn pages management via the app (or a dedicated app for this)
• Improved use of video content
• Alerts to Admin about new content (e.g. posts on LinkedIn) by staff and alumni
• Hashtags in body content should be clickable

14. Academics – the challenges
• Academics largely not on LinkedIn - only at the Business Schools -
so how do we get them motivated and up & running?
• Need to get Academics to publish - how? Create and leverage
champions, case studies?
• There are no UK academics who are LinkedIn Influencers - how
can we change this?
– LinkedIn response - need to get Academics posting regularly on LinkedIn, true
leaders in their field, and then propose case for elevation to Influencer status.
• Enforcing the use of LinkedIn in universities - staff fear overflow
of connection requests and recommendation requests - how to
help them?

15. Academics
– sharing the Wins (1/2)
• LSE – To appeal to Academics, need to change perception that LinkedIn is just for
getting a job
– At LSE, Academics collaborate with internal departments to get content posted –
they don't do it themselves.
• Birmingham
– Biosciences Academics not interested until shown the LinkedIn Alumni tool - now
see value
– Academics use other platforms e.g. Academia.edu to share papers / engage
community – can we share / link that onto LinkedIn?
• Leicester – Social Sciences – via weekly alumni events, academics saw the value of
LinkedIn, now started using it
• Warwick – Marcomms run social media training sessions for staff, and writing copy -
good for internal PR too.
• Aston – Running LinkedIn webinars for staff and these go down well.

16. • Important to get Academics active & influencing on LinkedIn
– Impact on own brand, university brand, attracting staff and prospective
students, current students / careers, alumni connections, research
– Like Warwick, can Marcomms run social media / networking / content
posting training modules for staff?
– Could Careers run LinkedIn sessions for Staff as they do for Students?
– Important to focus the teaching on LinkedIn as platform for networking /
connecting, and skills - not just for jobs / CV (stop obsessing on profile).
– LinkedIn is a good place for showcasing research (top level) – they can
then link to more details / official repository
• Enhancing your academic online presence using LinkedIn - useful Slideshare
post by Sue Beckingham (SHU)
• Development request
– Featured / Notable Academics (on the University Page)
Academics
– sharing the Wins (2/2)

17. Alumni – the challenges
• Can often be difficult to know when to stop things that aren’t working
• Challenging to determine whether to invest in expensive, flashy systems
• The data & contacts LinkedIn provides make it difficult to avoid
duplication/saturation when managing central record of alumni engagement
• Managing Groups since inactive groups are worse than no group at all
• Getting alumni to create content versus just generated by alumni relations team
• Publishing can be daunting, who is the right audience?
• Tough to get user generated research, establish what they doing and what they want
to see in terms of alumni relations/universities
• Challenging to determine what to measure, when (1 year on?), and managing data
from mentoring meetings

18. Alumni – sharing the wins
• Press releases and alumni stories have created improvement in engagement
• Use of short 6 digit code (on profiles) for alumni to show students which
alumni are willing to be approached by students (Manchester)
• LinkedIn gives relevant up to date contact details for events which is positive
• Working closely with Careers to generate effective content
• Use of guest editors to generate content for the day or week
• Get significantly more engagement than on Facebook
• Insights - communicating with alumni to identify/share why they started up
their own businesses
• Register content with strong engagement and create a handbook for getting
the best out of LinkedIn
• Contact alumni to get valuable data for rankings, accreditations, etc.

19. Alumni – development
feedback / requests
• How can Alumni Relations be alerted to alumni activity?
E.g. moved to new employer, new post, etc
• Ability to monitor alumni usage more closely

20. • Different requirements in different countries
• Cultural challenges in using photos - need to be aware of
different sensitivities across different cultures
• International students, particularly Chinese, do not use and
update frequently once returned to home country
International students
– the challenges

21. • Use of LinkedIn photo booth at Career Fairs targeted to
international students
• Target messages geographically using filters and alumni tool
• Key to approach for students to reach employers is through
alumni
• Using LinkedIn in conjunction with student ambassador scheme
International students
– sharing the wins

22. Additional resources
Including LinkedIn 3D event overviews
LinkedIn Students site https://students.linkedin.com/uk
Eric Stoller Event Slides https://speakerdeck.com/ericstoller/why-your-digital-presence-matters
Dave Musson
Event
Overview https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/35-gems-inspiration-from-linkedin3d-dave-musson
Joe Field
Event
Overview
https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/socialmedia/2016/04/15/linkedin-3d-conference-7-key-themes-
and-a-few-takeaways/
Matt Horne
Event
Overview https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learnt-linkedin3d-conference-matt-horne
Yasmin Ansari Careers post
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-strength-resilience-weightlifting-career-yasmin-
ansari?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like
Sarah Blunt Careers post http://careerscaseload.com/3-things-linkedin3d-taught-using-linkedin-careers-adviser/
Conference Summary / Agenda – see here: https://lnkd.in/3D4HE)

23. • Careers
– Social Media for Careers Professionals
– Career Services Professionals (LNKD)
– UK HE Career Professionals
• Alumni
– Alumni & Advancement Professionals
– Alumni Relations Professionals
• Comms
– University Communications and Engagement Network
– Social Media for UK Higher Education Marketing
– Digital Communications Marketing in Higher Education
Useful Groups

24. Events contacts
• Charles Hardy
Education Lead, LinkedIn
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/charleshardy
• Tripp Martin
Careers in Business Manager,
Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/trippmartin13
• Jessica Holloway Swift
Student Engagement Officer & Social Media Lead,
Careers Network, University of Birmingham
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hollowayswift