What is the one thing that almost everyone at Manchester College has, and absolutely everyone knows about? Hint: it’s not a disease. Give up? It’s a Facebook profile.

Facebook is the largest and most popular social-networking Internet site (beating both Twitter and Myspace) and is a great way to keep in touch with friends from high school and family members in far-off places.

This fast and user-friendly online community would appear to be the ideal stomping grounds for smaller, lesser-known colleges to pique prospective students’ interest and provide such students with friendly, one-on-one correspondence if they should have questions, comments or concerns.
This is precisely the intention (and expectation) MC Admissions staff had when they began to request Facebook friendships with already-admitted high school seniors who were still undecided on which college to attend. This plan, however, quickly backfired.

“We’ve actually struggled with it,” said Adam Hohman, reluctantly. Hohman is an Admissions counselor and largely responsible for MC’s advertising to high schools. “In the past we’ve tried to have our counselors just invite students to be their friends,” he explained. “But Facebook responded by threatening [to cancel] our counselors’ accounts, suggesting that it was a type of business as opposed to social connections.”

Needless to say, Admissions changed its tactics, and created Facebook groups (i.e. Manchester College Class of 2012). However, because the counselors are unable to add potential Spartans as their friends on the site, the students have to find these groups on their own, thus some people never know they exist.

It is for this reason that MC has developed its own online social site, entitled Manchester & Me.

“First-year students join it when they are initially admitted to Manchester,” Hohman explained. “And [after joining] they can communicate with other prospective students.”

Manchester & Me was designed to compensate for the disappointingly limited Facebook interaction, and it has been an effective, MC-exclusive site. Other Internet efforts have been made to maintain interest in the college, but with a larger audience (and participation) in mind. My Place and My Place Too can be utilized by prospective and current students, as well as staff and faculty. “ [Everyone in the MC network] can submit their pictures and profiles, and we have found that this feature is the most popular.” Hohman explained. “We don’t have as many staff or faculty profiles as we hoped, but it’s growing,” he said with a shrug and a smile.

While My Place has already proved to be successful, Hohman is quick to assure that all the necessary measures are being taken to maintain the site’s currency.

“We (the Admissions staff) are constantly trying to revitalize the website and keep up with trends,” he said. “We don’t have any video on our website, and we feel that that is something we really need to correct.”

It is an expensive project to make a well-done video, but Hohman is positive that, with the help of students to make it “cool and fun,” MC’s home web page will have comprehensive video of the college available sometime in the near future, hopefully making it all the more enticing to schedule a visit to the campus.

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