For one credit union, creating a page on the very popular myspace Web site was not designed as a venue for gaining new members, but instead as an educational tool.

“I don’t use it to get new members, but more as a way to interact with members of the community,” said Mark Ely, Hershey Federal Credit Union’s marketing and business development manager. “We don’t really try to get new members from it, but if they happen to come across it, that’s great. But it’s more just for information.”

Myspace.com is described on its own site as “an online community that lets you meet your friends’ friends.” Myspace is free of charge and, according to information on the site, appeals to single people wanting to meet other singles, family members who want to keep in touch, business people and co-workers who want to network, classmates and anyone looking for a long-lost friend.

Members first sign up, then follow the instructions of creating a page, which can include personal information and photographs. Then members can search for other members and invite them to be their “friend.” Once someone is a friend on your page, that friend sees all the bulletins and blogs that you post, and vice versa. People can e-mail each other through their myspace pages, in addition to posting comments on each other’s page for everyone to view. There is an option in which the member must approve comments before they can be publicly viewed.

Ely created a myspace page for Hershey about one year ago.

And he wasn’t alone.

“Actually, if you click on to our friends, you’ll see there are a lot of credit unions [on myspace,]” Ely said.

Of the 60 “friends” the Hershey CU has on its myspace page, approximately 15 of them are other Credit Unions, including: Pacific Service Credit Union, Brewery Credit Union, Land of Lincoln Credit Union, Motor City Credit Union, USA Credit Union, Capital Trust Federation Credit Union, First City Credit Union, Secure First Credit Union, Co-Operative Credit Union, First American Credit Union, UK Federal Credit Union, Boeing Wichita Credit Union, First Service Credit Union, WV United Federal Credit Union and Wheatland Credit Union.

“When we first created [our myspace page,] we saw only two [others.] Now there’s at least a dozen,” Ely said.

Most of the friends on Hershey CU’s myspace page are existing members, Ely said. In fact, it’s about half.

Ely said that Hershey’s page differs from other credit unions’ myspace pages.

“They have a lot of ads. Ours is very basic,” he said.

But expect changes for Hershey’s myspace page.

“I’d like to have blogs,” Ely said. For example, Ely said, he’s hoping to post a blog with a topic of “10 reasons why credit unions are better than banks. Sometimes I’ll put on a bulletin about something going on, such as when we had a kid’s day.”

     Ely said he has no way of tracking if hits onto the myspace page have transferred into hits onto the credit union’s actual Web site, but he knows that people are looking.

“We have about 20 to 30 views per day,” he said. “Our messages have to be approved. I don’t want people talking negative.”

Creating a myspace page for the Hershey Federal Credit Union was Ely’s idea.

“It seemed like an easy free way to market us into the community,” he said.

Ely said he would recommend myspace to other credit unions hoping to share information with the public. “I wouldn’t expect a lot out of it,” he said, meaning credit unions should not expect to gain a lot of members through myspace.

“It’s basically like a brochure on the Internet,” he said. “Just another way to get information to the community.”