Writing for New Media

When I started this class I was skeptical on all things “virtual.” I proudly decided that if it wasn’t in print, some sort of writing I could hold in my hands, then it wasn’t relevant. Although I still hold a personal reverence for print media, my opinion has changed on the very real virtual rality.

Twitter. My opninons on this form of social media are still mixed. When I first started the class I thought Twitter was a completely irrelevant excuse for people to tell me what soap they used in the shower this morning. However, I do now realize it is a very effective and useful professional networking tool. I do have a twitter (because this class made me get one) and I don’t use it much, however, I have decided to keep it, because I see it’s worth when I start looking for jobs and trying to make connections.

Facebook. I was into facebook before I started this class, and despite my usual wariness when it comes to social media cites, I really enjoy this one. It helps me keep in contact with friends from home, friends I met while abroad, friends who are abroad, etc. I don’t find it a useful networking tool professionally, and so I put no real relevant information on there, although I am very careful of what pictures are posted of me, because I do have employers who friend me (and what am I supposed to do, say no??) However, I will say that facebook is probably the only social media cite that I have lost repsect for as a result of this class. The more I see the professional, real-world usage of cites like Twitter, and LinkedIn, the creepier I think facebook is. And with all the random updates, strange advertising privacy loop holes, and general stalking creepiness, facebook has lost some points in my book. I’m going to keep it, obviously, who doesn’t have a facebook anymore, but I’m appraoching it with a bit more wisdom.

LinkedIn. I enjoy LinkedIn, and find it a very useful and interesting personal marketing tool, and although I have not done much with it yet since creating it, I plan to keep it and use it more in the future. I think it’s like an online professional portfolio, possibly even more useful then Twitter for making professional connections, and I plant o keep it updated.

As for viral marketing and social networking, it wasn’t that I was skeptical of them when I started, it was that I thought I knew what they were, when in actuality, I had no idea. I never thought viral marketing would be effective, but, if a person is on the computer more then they watch TV, and they are bombarded with adds, eventually something is going to hit home. And really good viral marketing campaigns are effective to gain interest when none previously existed. (The E*Trade Baby?? Elf Yourself?? Genius.)

Finally, the grand finale… my website. I’ll be honest, for a while I hated this thing. I didn’t understand how to work Dreamweaver, I wanted to tear my hair out. But as I got used to it, I found it easier to navigate, and with the final project finished, I’m pleased with the end result. I feel it accurately represents my accomplishments and professional goals, while also showing who I am. I think it’s simple, and aesthetically pleasing. And I have a better sense of what type of persona I can put forth on the internet, and the kind of information that requires.

Overall I found this class to be enjoyable, informative, and never boring. Not bad for the first (and probably last….no offense) communications class I will ever take.

I am working with Cornerstone Youth Center in Etown to organize an event called Card Me, which is a party where people need to “get carded” (provide giftcards with money left on them) to get in the door. The money we get from these gift cards will go to a noble cause.

My goals are to get a sizeable amount of gift cards to be able to donate to our cause. Originally, I thought that would result in attendance to the actual event, but I’m discovering that simply collecting the cards will also be an excellent way to gain the money we want to donate.

I put out the word for this event via email, facebook events, twitter, and facebook postings. I made a Card Me Party event, and invited all my friends to it, posted the link to my twitter account, and posted an advertisement to the Card Me Party event on the wall of a local college ad career group of a nearby church. I also sent out text messages asking people to donate/attend the event.

I won’t be able to accurately determine if it’s successful until I see how many people attend the party/ how many donations the event raises, however I will say that I don’t think the viral marketing campaign was very successful. Although I think I did as much as I reasonably could to promote numbers and awareness, planned attendance is stil low.

If I could go back and redo my viral marketing campaign, instead of making it an event to attend I would have made it a group to join, so people can be supporting it. I would have encouraged all who “support this good cause” to put their money where their mouths are, so to speak, and asked that anyone who joined the group make a donation. Since a large portion of my friends are on campus, I think more of them would have been more willing to hand over a card with a few extra dollars on it, then see an event, decline the invitation, and forget about it.

http://users.etown.edu/m/mcgrannk

As a brand new web-page designer, I did not think the process was too difficult. Once I learned how to navigate the Dreamweaver program, I was generally able to figure things out on my own, such as creating individual pages in Dreamweaver from the original template, and maneuvering Photoshop was very easy to figure out. I like how easy it is to save a new page to specific folders and if you create something on the original template page, it saves across all the pages. I did not like that everything put into the website had to be in specific formats because I wasn’t always sure what format they had to be in, where I had to open them, etc.(.jpeg, .png, etc.) however, some of that frustration came from being unfamiliar with Dreamweaver and basic web design processes. I had problems with some of the spacing on each of the pages, because if I had too much white space on the page I was creating, the program would not allow me to remove the space.

The pages I have finished am happy with are my home page, my resume page, and my sample pages. They are well formatted; easy to read, and present all the information I want them to.

The pages I have yet to finish are my links page. I don’t have the symbols actually linked to the websites I want them to go to yet, and the page is not finished. Also, I don’t really like the way I’ve formatted the page, although I’m not sure how to change it. My bio page is satisfactory, but I think it’s a little bland, I think I might want to add some interest to it by adding a picture, but I’m not decided on whether or not I’ll take that route.

Since I’m still becoming familiar with Dreamweaver, I would just generally like to become more familiar with how to use it. Specifically, I get confused with how to put specific graphics into the webpage, pictures, designs, etc. I would also like to learn how to do more with general layout design, so if I wanted to website with a background or design I would be able to do that myself.

I am a private person.

Not so much in the Ms. Havesham, my-soon-to-be-husband-left-me-at-the-altar-and-now-I-sit-around-in-a-wedding-dress-waiting-to-die kind of way, but much moreso in the sense that I feel more in control of my life when less people know about it. That’s not to say I’m not willng to share. And be in community. I do have a facebook. But for me, twitter goes against every thing I consider scared and holy about my privacy.

That is not to say I don’t see it’s usefulness as a marketing tool. It’s excellent for networking. As all major companies are starting to get twitter accounts, having a twitter keeps a person up-to-date on what’s going on in the professional world. As having online presence becomes more  important, twitter is extremely valuable.  Still, when this class is over, I will disable my account.

Call me old fashioned, but I don’t see the relevance of twitter in my life at this point in time. I’m not inclined to tweet about my day-to-day activities (@khouriMcgrann just at a giant orange from the market place! Yum!) and at this point I have no professional presence that would benefit from, or require, a twitter account. That is not to say that I will not need one in the future. However, after experimenting with it the past few weeks, I know my future account would be entirely professionally-based, and share nothing about my personal life. In a society where nothing is private, some things I will keep for me.

Khouri McGrann is a junior Professional Writing major at Elizabethtown College. When she graduates in 2011 she hopes to pursue a career in publishing. She hopes to experience employment in all writing venues, such as business, law, and fiction writing. Her ideal job would be working at a large publishing company, such as Penguin or Random House as a fiction literature publishing agent.

Khouri currently works as the Assistant News Editor on the Etownian, the Elizabethtown College newspaper. She also works as a jay walker tour guide in the Admissions Office. Over the summer she works as a lifeguard at Glenside pool, instructing swim lessons and coaching the Glenside Dolphins swim team. She has gone on several overseas mission works, to places such as Guatemala and London. This summer she will be pursuing an internship either with CLC Publishing Company or MarshallWolfe.

Khouri McGrann comes from a family of four, with a twin brother who attends York College for nursing. She attended Cheltenham High School where she graduated in 2007. She enjoys swimming, reading, writing, and spending time with friends. She has a black lab named Kayla, who she loves to take for long walks around her neighborhood.

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Khouri McGrann is a junior professional writing major at Elizabethtown College. She will be graduating in May 2011. She plans on working Philadelphia and living in that city or a surrounding suburb. Ideally she hopes to work in a large publishing company that specializes in fiction, such as Random House or Penguin.

Glenside, PA is located, quite literally, five mintues from the Philadelphia border. It is in the Cheltenham School Dsitrict, which is regionally known for allowing Philadelphia kids use fake addresses in the township to gain access to a more resourceful education. That’s right, we are… “The Ghetto School.”

My town is very unique because it manages to possess small-town qualities, despite being so very close to such a big city. We have all the typical accolades of a small town: our Fourth of July Parade (the rumored to be the oldest in the Eastern Montgomery County Area… which probably means nothing,) a farmer’s market every Saturday morning, and typical, crazy neighbors.

One neighbor that jumps to mind is Mr. Presley, although he is commonly referred to as “Calvin’s Dad.”

Calvin’s Dad is one of those people that you laugh about in theory, but in person makes you want to hide. He is a huge, hulking, 6-foot-and-more-than-5-inches-tall African American prison guard, who frequently wears leather vests (with nothing underneath… showing off his bare chest for the ladeez) and velour sweatpants. He rides an enoromous Harley, which can be heard blaring “Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can’t you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me” from blocks away.

I know him because I coached his son, Calvin (hence the nickname) on Summer Swim league. At the pool, Calvin’s Dad was an absolute predator. He would come up to the female lifeguards, while we were on the lifegaurd stands (and therefore at his mercy for a whole 15 minutes) and proceed to tell us how “fine” we looked, or asked if we were majoring “how to be sexy.” When reprimanded by our boss for being unprofessional…and creepy…, his apologies were always along the lines of “I’m sorry, but you’re just so beautiful I got distracted.” Very effective.

I’m glad to say that my town is not primarily made up of Harley-riding, hip-hop blaring, prison-guard, potential offenders, but we still have our weirdos.

I just hope it’s the same in every town.