@Cravecle is the Account All Alumni Should Follow

As you do your evening scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, you might find Marietta College’s own Nikki Hannaway (’16) and her @Cravecle account, especially if you live in Ohio. Maureen Morgan (’93), current chair of the MCAA Marietta College Alumni Association , stumbled across Hannaway’s content when one of her former high school classmates was tickled to find the account, which highlighted the city of Marietta and Marietta College . The @Cravecle account started off as a fun project and hobby for Hannaway, but it has become a notable account on social media platforms, with 101,000 followers on Instagram and 67,500 followers on TikTok.

As a Columbus, Ohio native, Hannaway was eager to start her professional life in Cleveland shortly after she graduated. In 2018, after hearing others lament that there was too little to do in the city, she and several friends started @Cravecle as “a fun way to highlight where we were socializing and the places we were visiting,” Hannaway explained.? Although at the time she and her friends were new to Cleveland, they quickly recognized that, in fact, they were living in quite an exciting city. For Hannaway, a Marketing and Advertising/Public Relations double major at Marietta College, creating content was “in her blood,” so she looked to social media to document the sites she and her friends were exploring. In addition to running the @Cravecle account, Hannaway is a PR Account Supervisor at Marcus Thomas LLC in Cleveland, where she specializes in social media, influencer marketing, and media relations. In her eyes, she was planting both professional and social roots in a new city, and she wanted to share all the things she loved about her new home. Now, she has a massive following to share her excitement with.

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Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic. Because so many businesses found it necessary to close, Cleveland residents were hungry for information about what to do and where to go. As an early adopter of TikTok, Hannaway wanted to use her platform to highlight local businesses and restaurants during that challenging time, so @Cravecle began to explore, and then to recommend, activities to their followers. With the integration of TikTok and Instagram Reels, the account grew from 8,000 followers to 50,000 followers in less than a year, and those followers weren’t just following – they were responding. For example, the business of one particular restaurant boomed so dramatically after being profiled on the platform that, instead of laying employees off, it began hiring employees. Clearly, followers appreciated @Cravecle’s content, and its followers were “craving” to learn more about Cleveland and Ohio.

Hannaway and @Cravecle decided to expand outside of Cleveland and began focusing their content southward. In June 2023, they took advantage of an opportunity offered by the Marietta-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) to visit Marietta and highlight the city. “This was something I had been wanting to do for a while,” Hannaway exclaimed. She and fellow alums Kelsey Jeffery (’15) and Lauren Bush (’15) looked forward to visiting the places that were among their favorites during their four years at Marietta College. All three recognized that, although Marietta College is a small school, those who graduated years and even decades ago, remain tied to it, are pulled back to it, and feel warmly nostalgic about it.

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The CVB outlined places they wanted @Cravecle to visit, but Hannaway was also given the creative liberty to promote additional sites that she and her fellow Pios cherished visiting, for example, popular Marietta social destinations such as Tampico, The Galley, Stoked Coffee, Busy Bee Restaurant, and Cone & Shake. They also visited new and refurbished establishments, including 740 Social, which has transformed from the "hole in the wall" bar many alums may remember. They also checked out small boutiques in town, took a guided tour, and visited Lookout Point. “Marietta is such a quaint town,” Hannaway observed, “and we wanted to share the rich history, the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, and of course Marietta College’s beautiful campus” with her followers, many of whom live in Ohio but are unfamiliar with Marietta. If you’d like to check out their trip to Marietta, you can view the Instagram Reel here .

When asked about the content she most enjoyed creating and posting on the platform, Hannaway responded – without hesitation –?“Honestly, featuring a weekend in Marietta was one of my top-five experiences because it was so natural and authentic to my experiences as a student.” Like so many Marietta College students, Hannaway was involved in a host of activities and organizations, including as President of the Pioneer Activities Council (PAC), which organized and hosted activities and events for students, and as the VP of Public Relations for her sorority, Alpha Xi Delta (AXD). In fact, using her social media, marketing, and PR skills, Hannaway drove awareness of the sorority’s activities and its members by managing the content on its Instagram account. In doing so, she honed the skills she now uses professionally to create engaging online content and loyal followers (she boasts modestly that AXD had the most-followed sorority Instagram account), and she has been leveraging and developing those skills even further in her full-time work at Marcus Thomas LLC.

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While Marietta was among her very favorite destinations, Hannaway noted that the Ohio city that most surprised her was Cincinnati. Prior visits hadn’t allowed time for thorough exploration, but in a recent visit there were two aspects of the city that she thought were remarkable. The first was Findlay Market, the oldest continuously operated public market in Ohio. Similar public markets – such as Pike Place in Seattle, Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, and Oxbow in Napa – are engaging, but Hannaway said Findlay Market is an incredible public market that Ohioans should visit.

?The second was how enthusiastically Cincinnati’s innovative incubator program supports small businesses, helping them find and get established in retail spaces. It’s the kind of support Hannaway says Cleveland’s West Side Market should emulate. Such observations show that Hannaway’s @Cravecle platform focuses on, and informs its followers about, the culture and characteristics that make every city and town unique and special. Her view is that to look for the uniqueness in every town is to find it, and @Cravecle guides followers in finding what’s special in cities and towns across Ohio.

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Clearly, in light of Nikki Hannaway’s story – her involvement on campus, the focus of her academic and pre-professional work, and her successful career in PR and marketing – her “side hustle” in @Cravecle makes complete sense. She believes absolutely that her education at Marietta College – particularly the experience she gained as President of PAC and in her sorority friendships and involvement –?prepared her well to thrive in Cleveland and pursue her passion for connecting with people and creating unbreakable bonds through the content she creates. About her Marietta College experience, Hannaway says, “I think the College set me up for success that I just don’t think would have been matched at a larger university!”

Please be sure to follow Hannaway and @Cravecle on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook!

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?Witten by the Marietta College Alumni Association Council and edited by Paul Adams (’69)

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