Birds say tweet and, since Monday, so does EC.

At 10:22 a.m., the college joined the social networking craze and posted its first Twitter.

“I just thought it would be a fun thing to try out,” Ann Garten, director of community relations, said.

In just a few days, EC has approximately 70 followers and its Twitter account is updated every day.

“We make sure to update at least once a day,” Garten said. “As a way to do P.R. and marketing, we look at different things going on, on campus (to inform the community).”

This is not the first time EC has tried to get into the world of social networking, but understaffing in this particular area hindered such projects.

“Our Web developer makes sure this account is updated,” Garten said. “We have had a MySpace and Facebook in the past, but for a while we didn’t have a Web developer, so (these pages) weren’t able to continue.”

Although these particular projects did not go through, Garten hopes that with a new Web director, the Twitter account will continue and boost the college’s communication with the community.

“We want to give the college some presence online and in the social networking area,” she said. “We want to find a way to reach students wherever they are.”

Although Twitter is a new way for the college to expand its reach to students and provides information about sports, fairs and other activities, Garten said that students should still continue to check EC’s Web site for all campus news.

“Students have to remember that with Twitter, we are limited to only 140 characters of text,” she said. “There’s a calender on our college Web site that has everything students need to know on it.”

The creation of the account was due to the spark of interest in such sites and the fact that the use of technology is very high among college students.

As for the future, Garten hopes to keep the account current and get a good response from students.

“Students are text messaging more and going online more often now as a new means of communicating,” Garten said. “We want to figure out the best way to communicate with students.”