Social media is commonly used to communicate with batch mates/alumni or to simply stay in touch with old friends. With the proliferation of social media, many educational institutes have their official alumni pages on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Several institutes have also gone a step ahead and created their own alumni portals to help their students connect with each other and maintain a network. However, institutes with alumni websites often fail to create enough engagement and those that do have engagement on Facebook/LinkedIn groups can often lead to spam.

Combining social media with alumni portals is undoubtedly an easy way to network and build professional contacts. Sikkim Manipal University – Distance Education (SMU-DE) has done exactly this by recently collaborating with ‘SMU-DE AlmaConnect,’ a platform designed to create a professional, interactive and trusted alumni network.

SMU-DE has a strong alumni portal with a network of over 3.5 lakh alumni along with 5 lakh students who have benefited from their distance education programs. Their distance degree courses have also helped professionals from reputed corporates recognize their dreams.

About AlmaConnect

Founded in 2011, AlmaConnect is a social platform based on private alumni networks. The goal of this portal is to bridge the alumni interaction gap and create a strong network based on trust. AlmaConnect works with educational institutes to help them build a strong social professional ecosystem among alumni, faculty or students of the institution.

The portal also includes school students, undergraduates, and postgraduates. There are over 2 thousand alumni communities on it and it is currently used by more than 300 top educational institutes across India and overseas, including IIM and IIT.

SMU-DE and AlmaConnect

By leveraging this online portal, SMU-DE can now directly connect with its alumni by initiating activities such as network events and job fairs. A strong alumni network can help SMU-DE in branding and organizing placement drives, and that is exactly what is expected from this collaboration.

This portal is important for networking and, especially beneficial for distance learning brands like SMU-DE since e-learning heavily depends on emails, and constant online communication with the faculty. As a result, students who have done their MBA or BBA courses will find it beneficial in building strong business connections with their alumni. Nurturing those connections is crucial for career development and that’s when the need for such a portal comes into place.

How will the portal help you?

The portal connects members with the alumni, students, and faculty of SMU-DE. Alumni using SMU-DE AlmaConnect can easily find new job opportunities since job updates from popular platforms such as Naukri and IIM jobs have been integrated into the platform. It also includes a feature that displays the aggregation of job openings in companies where alumni work. It ensures that you do not miss out any job updates relevant to your current position or interests and helps you build your career.

What’s more, members can also manage their networking events, upload albums, share memories/content, customize their profiles, maintain a job directory, recommend jobs and services, raise funds, and subscribe to discussions based on their interests.

It is easy to find batch mates or expand your alumni network on the platform due to the filter feature that categorizes members according to member type (student, faculty, etc.), location, graduation year, joining year, course, branch, company and education. SMU-DE AlmaConnect also includes a ‘News about Alumni’ section that tracks alumni mentions on social media websites, and ensures that only relevant alumni updates are seen by a user.

It is easy to get started with SMU-DE AlmaConnect. Just sign up with your email ID or connect through LinkedIn/Facebook and get ready to explore offers from recruiters waiting for the perfect candidate, which could be you!