Writing for New Media

I feel like any college student gets by with the help of a check list.  We go day in and day out running around this campus just marking things off this massive list.  With that being said, I sit here, reflecting on the check lists of Com315 and cross off another thing from the “Finals Week Check List.”

Twitter. At the beginning of the semester we were required to create a Twitter account and update consistently.  While I’ve already had an account for a while now, I thought it was interesting how we were able to utilize the technology in the classroom from tweeting useful facts and information to funny quotes we didn’t want to forget about. Check.

LinkedIn. After achieving 100% proficiency on LinkedIn I’ve found that this site truly is only useful in making connections for professional advancement and recommendations.  I do, however, hope it will be useful as I begin the job search process at the end of the semester. Check.

VM. Our viral marketing campaign, mine particularly covering Going Green with Tom Pagut, was one of my favorite projects.  It was fun to take something student created and try and push it to as many viewers as possible.  While our tip off with WGAL wasn’t successful, we did reach our goal of 100 more viewers.  Check.

Website. Working on the new ECTV website was, obviously, one of my favorite projects for the semester.  I have such a passion for ECTV and to work together with Caitlin to help better the board and the station is extremely rewarding.  For the most part, the site is complete. Once it’s able to be live more things will come together.  I am very proud  of the work Caitlin and I were able to put in, together, for this site that will now be able to be easily accessed and updated from any board member from any computer.  Check.

Well, there we have it.  Yet another “final assignment” checked off the list.  Here’s to an excellent and successful first semester of my senior year.

For the viral marketing campaign Caitlin and I have decided to work together using the ECTV Cares promo “Going Green: Riding Clean” starring Tom Pagut.  Originally the promo had 54 views on the ECTV YouTube site.  Our goal was to reach an extra 100 views by Friday, April 23rd.

To get as many views as possible we posted the link practically everywhere:  Cait and I’s twitter pages – @caitkoller and @stephaniecouch; our facebook pages – caitlin.koller and steph.couch; the ECTV-40 facebook page; the @ECTV40 twitter page; the Department of Communications facebook page; and I linked it on my Tumblr blog.  Caitlin also sent it to many of her friends via facebook.  I pitched the idea at WGAL to see if they wanted to cover the “ECTV  Cares” campaign as an Earth Day type story…to zero success (worth a try though, huh?)

As of this evening, we are at 152 views which is EXTREMELY close to our goal of 154.  Hopefully within the next few hours we’ll be able to reach our goal point.

www.ec40.tv

Overall I think ECTV’s site is coming along great.  There are a lot of new updates and things will be more organized and more appealing to the modern eye.  The format Cait and I chose is relatively original and we were able to divide up our categories to match the seven openings.  Working with the wordpress site and altering the HTML has become easier.  I’ve done it in the past for other sites I’ve worked on, but being reintroduced to things now is great.  With the help of Dr. Helb and Kevin, Cait and I have been able to add the linkable buttons and such.

I feel like this site will continue to be changing as ECTV evolves.  Pages that I’m happy with now include the productions page (complete with links to past, current, remote and special projects.)  I also like the about page, as Cait and I have incorporated the group writing exercise of ECTV information.  The home page will also serve as a blog for quick updates. And as for the Board of Directors page, I think it’s solid and done for now, but in the future (after the new board is picked for next school year) perhaps bios could be added as well as pictures.

We are still working on getting the Flickr feed to successfully link.  Hopefully once we can go live with the site it’ll be able to connect.  We do have all the photos set up there for now.  We are also waiting on the calendar page until we find something out with Comcast regarding the schedule.  Lastly, the watch now section obviously needs to get up and running.  “Coming Soon” pages will more than likely be placed on the photo gallery, schedule and watch now categories due to those little difficulties.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with this process so far.  Cait and I have worked really well together collaborating ideas and picking the different elements for the site.  We’ve also done a great job at working through hiccups and little technical difficulties that came with the inability to access the site at times.

I’ll be the first to admit, at first I thought Twitter was one of the absolute dumbest things invented.  I didn’t understand the concept or the reasoning, let alone why I needed to tell people what I was thinking at any given moment in time.  Then I started applying for internships.  Last year I found an internship listing for a PR firm very involved with Social Media.  Since I really wanted to nail this opportunity, I signed up for a Twitter two days before my interview.  During the meeting with the president I was asked if I had a Facebook and a Twitter.  Before I even made it back to campus @Moxie_Julie was following me and sent me a direct message thanking me for coming in to meet with them.  After working for @MoxieTweet for the summer, I learned how important Twitter can be.  We worked daily on either ghost tweeting for some of our clients or explaining to others why they should jump into the social media world.  I find it an extremely important marketing tool to help promote a company in ways that weren’t able to be done even two years ago.

Now, I find myself basically addicted to Twitter, tweeting about absolutely anything from a funny picture of a professor, personal accomplishments, or complaints.  While I do think there are times to tweet and times not to tweet, it is an action that is becoming almost a part of everyday life.  This is especially demonstrated by the article read for class.  Even politicians are finding themselves addicted to twitter on their phones.

This class overall is really opening my eyes to how effective Twitter can be as a teaching tool.  I enjoy that Professor Helb is encouraging us to take advantage of the technology available to us in social media while we learn about it in class.  Exercises such as the most recent sharing of blogs became extremely easy while we just tweeted our hyper-local and global blog findings and pulled the links off the feed.  While, at first it seems like the concept of Twitter was a fad, I think it’s safe to say it will be around for a very long time.

Stephanie Couch is a senior Communications student at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.  She is concentrating in mass media and corporate studies.  Upon graduation in December 2010 she hopes to begin her career in either the broadcasting or public relations industries.

Stephanie is the current Station Manager of ECTV-40, the college television station.  She is the President of the Etown Chapter of the Society for Collegiate Journalists and was the Historian for her class in Alpha Lambda Delta, the freshman honor society.  She is the Assistant to the Department Chair, a Student Lab Assistant and the Publications Assistant in the Department of Communications.  She is also a tutor for various communications courses.  In the summer of 2009 Stephanie balanced two separate internships, one with Moxie Design & Marketing in York, PA and the other at Susquehanna Bancshares, Inc. in Lititz, PA.

Stephanie was born in Latrobe, PA in 1989 and grew up with her mother and father.  She attended Greater Latrobe Senior High School before heading to Elizabethtown College.  She has lived in Elizabethtown since 2008.  When time is available, Stephanie can be found enjoying time with her friends, the outdoors and photography.

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Stephanie Couch is a senior Communications student at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.  She is concentrating in mass media and corporate studies.  Upon graduating in December 2010 she plans on beginning her career in either the broadcast or public relations industries.  She lives in Elizabethtown.

What’s in a home town?  Personally, I think a home town is anyplace that makes me feel welcome, loved and secure.  It’s a place that I enjoy visiting and will use the (dangerously expensive) gas and time in a car to go there and spend time.  It’s also a place where I have friends and family who support me in everything I do, and kick me in the butt (not literally) when I’m doing something stupid.  So with that being said…

Three and a half hours away from Etown, one can find Latrobe (still in Pa) …otherwise known as my home town.  Not to mention, it’s also the “home town” for Rolling Rock Beer, the late (but great) Mister Rogers, the banana split, the first pro football team, Steelers training camp and a few other notable things.  Before college, I had lived in Etown for my whole life and never moved from the same house on Mission Road.  I’m an only child with my Mom and my Dad and the only thing that has really changed has been the family pets.  Latrobe is also the homeof one of my best friends, Anna.  She and I have been best friends since high school and I couldn’t imagine life without her.  We very rarely get to see each other now with our ridiculously busy schedules, but we are walking proof that regardless the distance we are best friends at heart.  This summer, Anna will be moving to either Washington DC or Georgia to engage in her “real world” job, dealing with political science.  Seriously, just because she’s my “bif” doesn’t mean I understand her major .

A second place I consider home is Reading, Pa.  For the past three years I’ve met numerous people from there that I now call some of my best friends in the world.  Therefore, it’s normal to see me traveling there for dinner on a weeknight or even for the whole weekend.  It’s a beautiful city (that has it’s horribly sketchy parts) that is the home of the Daniel Boone Homestead, and one of my favorites, the Pagoda.  Granted, I don’t know nearly as much about Reading, as I do Latrobe, but it’s a feel good place that feels like home without the three hour drive.  While Reading brings countless numbers of close friends, it’s the home to my other best friend Coop.  We’ve been friends since my freshman year of college and upon his graduation in May 2009 we’ve continued to keep in touch and see each other all the time.  He works at WGAL in Lancaster and often stops by Etown while in the area. His family even has me over for dinners so I can get a home cooked meal when I can’t make it to Latrobe.

Reading and Latrobe.  Two completely different towns on two completely opposite sides of Pennsylvania. Two home towns of mine.