Incircle: what do you think?
 

Does your greek group currently use InCircle? What do you think about it? For those who also have FaceBook or Yahoo Groups, did InCircle replace it for you, or do you use it differently?

I've searched here and found TriDelta and AOPi members using it, and generally speaking very positively about it. Would you recommend it to other groups? I know of several other groups looking at it and wanted some candid feedback.

Thanks!

We (AOII) use InCircle. I think it has been very well received. My only real complaint, if you want to call it that, is that there seems to be a core group of posters who are on there all the time and still zillions of sisters who never get on at all. It also isn't as active as Greek chat. I think as time goes by and more sisters get used to the technology it will be used more. I think the older generations of alumnae are likely intimidated by it or don't even really know about it.

Irishpipes: you said there aren't many posters on it. Was it announced in a big way with training or just like in your national magazine? Am curious if groups are really pushing people to sign up for it. Given the cost of it (around $24K for a 3 year contract) I'm wondering the real ROI.

I use InCircle (I'm a Tri Delta). It's nice to have b/c it gives you the ability to network with sisters across the country but it didn't replace myspace or facebook for me.

AOII actually have a pre-launch before the full launch on the website, To Dragma (magazine), etc. Basically e-mail invites were sent out to all those sisters who posted on GreekChat, MyAOII Discussion boards, etc.

While there are a core group of people that are active on inCircle, it does seem to be growing. There are groups for just about EVERYTHING and some are definitely more active than others (and some go in spurts). Will it replace Facebook for the collegians? No. HOWEVER it has connected a LOT of sisters both 'lost sisters' and just meeting new sisters. It made Leadership Institute (and I'm sure Convention) even more fun because you are putting faces to posts, etc. There is definitely the sisterhood and 'Big Picture' AOII aspect that makes it attractive.

My school (University of Alabama) just installed it. I hate it. It's hard to figure out how to post anything. They seem to assume there is only 1 graduate per family, so I have to go through a different e-mail account than my husband, who's also an alum. Stupid.

InCircle is okay, but here is my complaint. They list people using their first name and current last name. If you want to find out their maiden name, you have to click on each individual profile to see it. There are some people I would love to reconnect with, however unless you know thier married name it is a pain to try and find them.

ASA just started using InCircle (We call it Sister Circle - but it's the same company). There was an announcement on the national website, but if you're not a regular visitor, you wouldn't have seen it. There will probably be something about it in the upcoming Spring Phoenix. I like it a lot, as it is much more active then our previous AlphaNet, but it's hard to search for spesfic things - namely chapters, since when you put in "Beta Kappa", you get ANYTHING in the profile that has Beta and Kappa. And since we have quite a few chapters that are Beta-something, and there's a popular honor GLO with Kappa in it, I get quite a few hits to dig through.

All in all though, I really like it.

ETA: I also am set to receive "Daily Digests", and it will not send them for 3-4 days, and then send them all at once.

I love InCircle! AOII and Ole Miss both have it! I will say this the AOII InCircle is way more active than the Ole Miss InCircle. I think the Ole Miss InCircle has around 6000 members on it! I enjoy the AOII InCircle because I've been able to talk about AOII things that wouldn't be deemed appropriate on a public message board!

https://rebelnetwork.olemissalumni.com/

https://incircle.alphaomicronpi.org/

Search under the school name, sillypants. :) Or just under "western." If I searched under my chapter name I'd be there all day too.

Ditto everything Jess said - I've reconnected w/ sisters I haven't talked with in literally 20 years. It's a 2000% improvement over anything we've had previously.

So is it more focused for alumnae? Or do the college members find it beneficial too?

I think collegiate members would find it useful/fun as well - and we do have some on there - but most of us who posted are alums, so we see it from that side.

That's another thing I like about it - there is no collegiate/alumnae division. Except for a few instances, it's not like we have groups for "Alpha Chapter - Collegians" and "Alpha Chapter - Alums" and you daren't join the wrong one. Everyone can post in the group together.

Thanks! Can you give me some idea of the types of sub-forums you have? Like do you have every chapter as a unique forum, and ones for things like "recruitment" or "finances" things like that? Are there moderators for the forums?

Anyone can create a "forum" called a group in InCircle. If you create it, you are the "moderator." However, unless you choose to make the group restrictive, moderators don't really do much of anything. If you do choose to make a group restrictive (say, only initiated members of XX chapter) only the moderator can admit new members who apply.

We have groups for each chapter, alumnae chapters, states, regions, people who like American Idol, Harry Potter, moms, musicians, republicans, democrats, Irish, Cub fans, Corp Board members, former traveling consultants, surfers, teachers, book clubs, you name it, we have it.

Group members can post threads within the group. The only way lurkers see those posts is to open the group and see it, unless they are group members and then it tells you there is a new post. There is also a Community section where there are just general types of threads that are right there for everybody to read without being a group member.

Something else that I like about inCircle is that it gives you birthday reminders for people in your network. It's very helpful. It also allows you to create journals and link any blogs that you have created to your personal home page.

As irishpipes said, there are groups for just about everything and there are over 600 of them. The latest one is an Autism Support Group.

Same with us -- I just recently saw something about it at our national website. We're calling it Sinfonia Circle, but like ASA's, it's the same company.

It's been a while since this thread was active, but I am wondering if everyone is still as excited about InCircle as they were previously. We are thinking about getting it.

Kappa Alpha Theta is now using InCircle. I cant speak for others, but personally I enjoy it :)

Delta Gamma is in test mode with it. I think it may go online sometime after 1-1-2008.
The University of Alabama has been online for a while, but it hasn't really been promoted in any other media, such as the school alumni magazine. It's pretty dead in the water right now.

I'm a member of the DG test.

So far it's at least as useful as linkedin.com. I'm chomping at the bit until all our sisters are invited...it annoys me that it didn't come well-enough prepared that the organization could use it right "out of the box." Having to test for three months tells me it's not really well designed.

OK, bumping this because I wondered if this is happening w/ everyone else's InCircle.

We have people who are sending out announcements about new groups to literally EVERYONE and if you have no interest in the group, there's no way to delete the announcement. I can understand this for groups like "Our new headquarters" that are sorority-wide interest, but some of them are REALLY specific. Is there any way to filter these?

On ours, those announcements have a time limit. They appear at the top of your homepage but disappear after a week or so.

I have two gripes about it: 1) sisters who think that the site is their personal selling space and will send out annoucements, create bulletins, and post discussions about their Arbonne/Mary Kay/Avon/Pampered Chef sales like it's going out of style, and 2) when you close the site, if you just click on the x, next time you open the site, you will still be logged in, which is a problem if you're using a shared computer, you have to remember to log out each time.

Does ASA have an InCircle Feedback group? We have one and a representative from Affinity Circles usually responds quickly.

Yeah, this is another thing. I don't care if the sisters who do that want to have a group to discuss it or for interested people to contact them (like if you want to buy MK and your rep left the area or something). But when I see someone who's been on there a while and hasn't connected with any other members and her only posts are about Arbonne, then I think it's pretty obvious why she's there...and it's not for sisterhood.

aopirose, I think we have someplace to click on to send feedback.

For the Direct Marketing people like Arbonne, Pampered Chef et al, they have an interest group. It's not difficult to find a representative if you need one. The search function is your friend. :)

I think that one of our sisters created the "InCircle Feedback" group. That way lots of people could chime in with ideas or gripes. It's been working out pretty good so far. I'll ask about being able to delete announcements.