Organizations vie for Facebook followers

The first bi-annual Facebook Face Off is being held in Conference Room C of the Sam Rayburn Student Center today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The purpose of this event is to give students a chance to become fans of certain organizations in the division of student access and success via Facebook. By becoming a fan, students will have easier access to information pertaining to events put on by the represented organizations.

Among the groups in attendance were Financial Aid, The Registrar, Career Development and The Club.

Assistant Director of Marketing and News Media for Texas A&M University-Commerce Lisa Martinez said she is trying to get these groups to use a new medium to reach students.

"We are trying to have a streamlined structure on Facebook where students can go from page to page and know they are related to A&M-Commerce," she said.

Cell phones can also play a role in disseminating information from Facebook to students according to Martinez. Students can sign up to receive text message status updates to their phones regarding upcoming events. Phones will not be flooded with texts though Martinez said. There will be three messages sent per event. The first message would be 10 days prior, the second five to seven days before and lastly on the day of the event.

"If a student has unlimited text messaging, why not take advantage?" she said.

Martinez said she wants to expand the event to other divisions next semester and eventually include all organizations on campus that want to be involved.

Head of Marketing and Promotions for The Club Jennifer Alvarado said the location of the event could have been better, but she is still excited and sees the benefit of the event.

"It's hard to get information out to people," she said.

Although Alvarado said she saw the event as being helpful, all students' organizations should have been allowed to join. She said the event should have been opened to all groups and everyone should have had a chance to come out and try and get a following for their organization. That's what the event is really about according to Alvarado.

"This does help a lot and hopefully we [The Club] will get more friends," she said.

Another group attending Facebook Face Off was The Office of Career Development. Student worker Kendra Duty who maintains the office's Facebook site said she has seen the value of having page since it was started last week.

"With in the first week we had 40 fans, now we have 170," she said. "A lot of students are not aware of what we are doing and this will help."

Career Development had acquired about 12 new friends before 11:30 a.m. according to Duty.

The event will continue until 4 p.m. and is open to all students.