The Hillsdale athletic department is revamping the athletic teams’ social media accounts to make a consistent marketing brand for all the teams.

Regan Monnin ’21 joined the athletic department last December and Emma Purdy ’23 started working in the department this August. Monnin is the director of marketing and community relations, and Purdy is the coordinator of creative services and fan engagement.

“Maintaining a consistent brand identity is something we’re very adamant about this year, especially as we expand as a DII athletic school,” Monnin said. “We’re also really trying to do a better job of showcasing our athletes and doing more storytelling with our graphics and social media.”

Monnin said the athletic department bought a graphic design software for coaches to run their teams’ social media. 

“If you look at each team’s social media, the graphics are a lot more consistent,” Monnin said. “We’ve done some seminars with the coaches to show them how to do things and try to give them more support because they’ve really been on their own up until this year.”

Monnin and Purdy taught the coaches how to take footage of their athletes and gave them ideas of questions to ask their athletes for Q&A reels, Monnin said. 

“Social media is often the first thing people look at when it comes to recruiting,” Monnin said. “We have some of the best sports programs in Division II, and you have no idea because no one talks about it.”

Monnin said larger colleges hire an assistant coach to run the social media. 

“Obviously we do not have the coaching staff like they do, but for the most part, every social media is run by an assistant coach, and then sometimes athletes step in and help out,” Monnin said. “Other than the main athletic accounts for the general department, Emma and I are just support for everyone else.”

Monnin said the athletic department did a rebrand last year because there was no standard blue color for the teams to use.

“Nobody actually knew what the Charger Athletics’ color was,” Monnin said.

Using the same colors and fonts make the brand stay consistent across the board, Monnin said. 

“We’ve been able to make the social media look really good because we finally have the manpower and somebody who’s willing to sit down and do it,” Monnin said.

The athletic communications department has never had three people in it before, Monnin said. Prior to this fall, Director of Athletic Communications James Gensterblum ‘12 was the only person working in athletic communications.

Gensterblum said Monnin and Purdy have made huge contributions with the athletic social media platforms and they have greatly improved the environment at home sports contests with promotions and theme nights. 

“They’ve been a huge asset to our department already in their first year on the job, and I think we’re only going to continue to grow as a team from here,” Gensterblum said.

Before the athletic department hired Monnin and Purdy, Gensterblum had been doing most everything for the website and social media, Monnin said. 

“He did the best he could, but the social media was just score and game updates,” Monnin said. “Then I came in December and took over all the social media stuff for athletics.” 

Purdy said she worked as a student for Gensterblum and Monnin last spring, doing photography, graphic design, and regulating promotions. She graduated with a psychology major and a biology minor.

“Nothing really to do with marketing or graphic design, but when I was in college I ran social media and marketing for the GOAL program for three years,” Purdy said. “I’ve also always loved photography. It’s just a mix of passions, and I like to incorporate my psychology background into my graphics by making them appealing to the eye.”

Monnin said she majored in rhetoric and public address and wrote for The Collegian during her time at Hillsdale. 

“I did political PR for a year and a half out of school,” Monnin said. “My husband and I traveled full time for a while. We had our own travel Instagram, so I had some experience with that.”

Purdy said she and Monnin are trying to find ways to get the athletic and non-athletic student bodies to interact more frequently.

“We’re really trying to find ways for students to have fun at games,” Purdy said. “We’re going to do a lot more endgame activities throughout the basketball season and football games. We’re really trying to have students support other students.” 

The athletic department can never have too many student photographers, videographers, and help with social media, Purdy said. The athletic department hopes to develop a program where students can get experience with sports media. 

“It can be really hard to break into the sports space, so if kids want to be in it, they should come work for us because we have stuff for them to do, and they can get hands-on experience,” Purdy said. “We don’t have enough time to do everything that we want, so yeah, come work for us.”

Monnin said people should follow @hillsdale_chargers on Instagram. 

“We promote our home events, and we do a lot of fun, different things on it,” Monnin said. “It’s a really good place to go for information.”