With an office located in the heart of IU’s Bloomington campus, it is easy for me to stay in the know about what’s happening around campus and throughout IU as a whole. (It helps that I also manage IUAA’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and now Instagram) and that I love to peruse the web for interesting IU-related stories— but that’s beside the point!)

At the Alumni Association, we work to make needed resources available to our volunteers who are running or trying to create an alumni group or chapter. This commitment not only involves actual resources, but also information. How can you excite a group of alumni if you don’t have interesting stories about our Alma Mater to share with them?

In an effort to meet this need, we launched the IU Social Crew right before the start of the fall 2015 semester. The IU Social Crew provides interesting, IU-centric content and merges it with the reach and engagement possibilities of social media.

Not only is this a great way for IU students, parents, alumni, and friends to share information, but users can also earn points and win prizes. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love prizes?

So you might be wondering how it works, and trust me, it could not be easier. You become an IU Social Crew member by linking your social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram) at socialcrew.iu.edu. You can link all of them, or just one—completely up to you. After connecting your accounts, you can interact with the page and share content.

There’s even a content library that contains IU-related stories and links with prewritten text that you can share with the click of a button. You can customize your own posts and tag IUAA, or you can simply retweet one of ours.

We also have photo contests that display on the IU Social Crew homepage. Currently, we are featuring photos that have #IUcolors in the post.

Once a week, each member will receive an email that highlights a specific story, which can be easily shared on social networks just by clicking the “share now” button in the email.

Everything you do in IU Social Crew accumulates points. You can check your standing on the leaderboard and plan accordingly to move up the list.

Right now, we are running a contest for the top recruiter. Each user is assigned a unique referral link to share with their friends. This tracks how many people sign up from your personal link. On November 1, the user with the most recruits will win an IU cooler packed with $130 in IU gear!

So please, start promoting IU Social Crew within your chapters and groups! This is a great opportunity for you to engage with your members and leverage their social impact to share some really great IU stories!