Writing for New Media

Some of the applications that we used in this class we very new to me as I was not taught how to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop in any previous Communication course. This seems a little odd being a Communication major and using the MAC computers all day. However, for the entire semester I learned how to use these applications-with the help of Dr. Helb and some fellow classmates! It was so amazing to see how far I had advanced with using these tools throughout the entire semester! I enjoyed every aspect of the Communication 315 course. I feel that using these applications, updating blogs and designing my own website has helped me learn more about the social media and networking. This will help me after I graduate to stay in tune with the social media!

Speaking of social networking, I am very familiar with Twitter and had set up a Twitter account over a year ago. I am still not sure the point of updating your status every so often, however, it is the latest social media website and I need to be familiar with how to use it. I am not so much a fan of this website only because I do not like to let the world know what I am doing every second. The only entertainment I get out of this is stalking the celebrities. It is very amusing! I will continue explore Twitter more and figure out how to post comments on other peoples accounts-surprisingly I am not sure how to do this!

Oh, Facebook. For the past five years I have had my Facebook account and I am pretty experienced with using it and being able to update statuses. I think Facebook is my favorite social networking website. During this semester I used Facebook as my viral marketing tool to launch my campaign. It worked perfectly! I raised a great amount of money for the M.S. Society by using this website!

I have also had a Linkedin account for a couple years now and I was one of the few students who had already had an account prior to the class. I am not really a fan of Linkedin only because when you “friend request” people you have to say where you have met this person or how you know this person, completely different from Facebook! It is a good aspect in regards to avoiding stalkers. The only reason I have created this account was for future employees to view my resume online. It does help to have your professional experience on your own social media website!

Lastly, my website. Now it took me the longest time to figure out how to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop for my website. But as I mentioned before, with the help of the professor and some friends I managed to figure it out and successfully publish my own website! I will be sure to use this website forever and update it with my most recent experiences. I chose not to put my own samples of work on the website because I feel it will look sloppy and not professional–since most of it is writing samples.

From the beginning of the semester until now, I have learned so much from this class. I feel Dr. Helb helped me out so much to work towards finishing my website! Many of the social networking websites are familiar to me from previous classes. It was amazing to launch my own campaign on Facebook and watch how many people donate money towards a cause! I will be sure to use this information throughout my experience in the real world!!!

The viral marketing campaign that I have designed was a donation event for the Multiple Sclerosis Bike Challenge that is occuring on May 23, 2010. This bike challenge is a 50 mile race that will take place in Chestertown, Maryland. My father was diagnosed with M.S. in 1994 and in honor of him, my mother has taken on this challenge. We are trying to raise money for the Society. All money will go directly towards M.S.

In order to invite people to this event, Flori and I have designed a Facebook event that provides a description of the bike race, the date and time and the M.S. website that will provide a direct link to the friends to make a donation. We decided to use Facebook since it will target the right people and it will provide them with a direct link to the website instead of sending money through mail. My mom designed this event on Facebook last year and raised over $1,000 in donations. Therefore, our goals include: raising over $1,500 in donations and people volunteer to participate in the bike/walk challenge. This event on Facebook will be successful because it will generate traffic to the website. People can invite people to the event which will bring in more donators.

http://users.etown.edu/p/paulshockb

This is my first experience with designing my own website. Aside from Communications 135, this is also my first time using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I am still getting used to figuring out how to use these applications. It has been extremely difficult using them with my website because I cannot there are so many shortcuts and buttons to use that I am not used to. I have been trying to figure out everything on my own,  but not being computer savvy it is difficult.

The only things that are complete on my website are my title page and resume page. I have to add my samples yet and will do that next class. I have gathered all of them together and saved on my zip drive. It shouldn’t be too hard to upload the writings, the only difficult part of doing this is formatting. When I copied and pasted my resume from a Word document to Dreamweaver, the fonts and format changed drasticly. It took me the entire period just to format the resume to the way I wanted it to look. My next step in the website process is to add a photograph of myself on the website and upload the samples.

I have been taking this as a step-by-step process as this is the first time I am using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The tabs are organized on the drive to make it easy to open and save all of my work samples. There are three YouTube videos from my previous internship that I was looking to add to my website, but was not sure how to download them. However, I think I would need a little more one on one attention since I am on the begining stages of making my website.

I am not a big social media person, however maybe I should be considering I am a Communications major. I have an account on Facebook, like every college student does. Once in a while I will update my status on my profile, but that’s pretty rare. I am a more conservative person. I am not a fan of letting the whole Facebook world know what I am doing every minute of the day. However, I do find it entertaining to read everyone’s’ posts and updates on Facebook.

It was this past summer that I became friendly with Twitter. I was still not sure how to activate my account at this time, but I managed to post one status. For the past three weeks, I have learned almost every aspect of Twitter. I can now successfully post something and “tweet” on someone’s’ wall. There are still some things about the social media site that confuse me. I just do not understand how someone would want to post what they are doing every hour of the day? But, that’s the whole point of Twitter. And, I am going to admit, that it has me entertained.

The most intriguing part of the social media website is the fact that a person can stalk celebrities. I can see what my favorite celebrities are doing every minute of the day. I love stalking their pictures they post and links to other websites.

I feel that Twitter is one of the best social networking websites. It is fast, easy and enables updates throughout the day. I find it fascinating that you can “tweet” on your cell phone and it can go directly on the twitter account and even to Facebook! That amazes me! The only bad thing about the website is that you can only tweet less than 140 characters. This allows people to use slang and abbreviations in the messages

I am still learning how to use Twitter properly and update my status. I enjoy it for the reason of stalking celebrities. I could sit on the website for hours and be entertained. You can find all of the latest Hollywood gossip!

Brittany Paulshock is a senior Communications major at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA. Brittany focuses on Corporate Communication and would like to pursue a career in the field of public relations or marketing. She will graduate in May 2010 in hopes of working for a company in the Baltimore, Maryland area.

Brittany has much experience in the field of public relations and public affairs. She worked as a public affairs intern at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center Office of Public Affairs. For two summers, Brittany had the privilege of being an editorial assistant for their major magazines: Promise and Progress and Conquest. Brittany also worked as a public affairs intern for the Penn State Hershey Medical Center in the Center for Eating Disorders. For her senior capstone project, Brittany worked for Susquehanna Style Magazine in Lancaster, PA. She developed a comprehensive social media program to drive traffic to the magazine’s website.

Brittany was born on January 20, 1988 and raised in Bel Air, Maryland her entire life. She lives in the town with her father, mother and twin brother and sister. She graduated from C. Milton Wright High School in 2006. In her spare time Brittany enjoys training for half-marathons as she completed her third marathon in November. She hopes to finish her first full marathon after graduation.

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Brittany Paulshock is a senior at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown Pennsylvania. She focuses her studies on Corporate Communication with an emphasis on public relations. After graduation in May 2010, Brittany is going to begin her journey into the field of public relations. She enjoys running, shopping and eating healthy.

Good ol’ Bel Air, Maryland. Bel Air is a slightly small town located in Harford County Maryland. It is home to three high schools–the largest high schools in the county, one of which was mine. Bel Air is a very pleasant town that consists of many shopping areas, restaurants and small boutiques.

Main Street is in the center of the town and is filled with many bakeries, second-hand clothing stores, small dellis and bars. It is considered a college town by many people because it is said to have the best bars in the area. It is known for its historic castle-like buildings and small family-owned stores.

There are many things to do in the town of Bel Air. Shopping and going out to eat are the most popular things to do on a Friday or Saturday night. One great thing about the town is we have about 5 Wawa’s within 30 miles of each other. You can find most of the high schoolers hang out in front of the convient store on a Friday or Saturday night–since it is the “meeting” place before a party. A Wawa is the place to go if you are looking to get a delicious hoagie or “sub” as some people might say.

In the town of Bel Air there are two running/walking trails for the community. Both of the Ma and Pa trails run through the woods and open land of Bel Air. One of them is seven miles long and the other is four. Many people spend mornings or evenings walking or jogging on the trails–sometimes the town even holds races here. Many of the residents use the tracks to train for marathons. I tend to spend most of my summer days running on the trails. However, at night time, it is a whole different story.

I enjoy living in Bel Air, Maryland. It is called the “Heart of Harford County” for a reason. It contains everything from malls, restaurants to running trails. It was a perfect community to live in the past 22 years of my life. I loved growing up in such a small town–but knowing how close everything was to my house.