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.

How is it possible that 4 years of my life has passed me by so quickly? Wow. I’ve been fairly technologically resistent up until I got here. I didn’t get a cell phone until the end of my freshman year here at school. But little did I know that technology would be such a huge part of my college experience, especially once I became a Communications major.

We were required to sign up for Twitter and use it even during class time. Weird? Yes. I had signed up for Twitter a year back probably, and days after, I had deleted it. But after giving it a second try, I think I will end up keeping it, just because it’s a really quick and easy way for me to be updated in the areas in which I want to be updated. I don’t have to wait for certain programs to come on TV.

LinkedIn is a very useful tool which I had not heard of before. Now that I have been introduced to it, I’ve set it up so hopefully potential employers may end up seeing my profile and get in contact with me. Presenting yourself on the Internet is a big thing now-a-days and this is certainly one way of achieving that.

I enjoyed the viral marketing campaign on Facebook as it gave me a way to spread some word and have some fun in the track team’s case. I made a page for the Etown Sprinters, added pictures and videos and ended up getting over 150 people to become fans of us. 150 was the goal and I made it to 175 people by the deadline. It was really cool to see a good number of Etown Track and Field alumni join the group as well. It is amazing to see how much of an impact Facebook really can have as it did in my case. Word spreads in an instant.

Blogging will continue to become a big part in the news world, and just in general. Everyone seems to blog these days. A dream of mine would be to blog for a professional sports team, such as the Philadelphia Eagles or the Philadelphia Union. Thanks to this class, I was able to gain more experience in blogging and it will help in my future endeavors.

Last was the creation and initial development of the new WWEC 88.3 website. I’ve never done this before, but it was a challenge that I wanted to tackle and it became a lot easier once I got going. Many thanks to Dr. Helb for helping me out along the way, but he gave me some general directions and just let me go at it. I added several pages, changed the image headers, created a program schedule, and added a page for the board members with a picture and some bio information included. I think it is off to a great start and I can now leave it off for the next person to pick it up and continue developing it until it is finally completed to their satisfaction. Thanks to the radio board for their collaboration and helping me out as well.

It took me a while to get used to this class. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it because everything seemed so laid-back, but overall, I enjoyed learning about social media.

I wasn’t too keen on having a Twitter account at first, and I’m still not sold on following a whole bunch of people. Still, like Gavin said, it is an excellent way to get news quickly. I mostly skim over my feed until I find tweets from CNN, The Associated Press and Doctors Without Borders, but I am trying to accept it as a format for “ordinary” microbloggers as well. It would have been cool if we had called up Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, too.

I thought the viral marketing campaign was an interesting use of Facebook instead of holding it to just wall posts and status updates. The competition between me and Jen was a good example of viral marketing because after we invited all of our friends, we really had to rely on others to invite more people. Though we could beg for fans through status updates, tweets or word-of-mouth, it really came down to our friends’ participation and willingness to get others to join the fanpage. The fact that everyone came up with a different idea and was able to gain a following is worth mentioning because it shows that Facebook especially is beneficial when it comes to viral marketing. Millions of people use the site, and to start a campaign through a group, event or fanpage means that hundreds, and possibly thousands or more, will see what you are trying to do and help spread the word. I think it would have been interesting if we were made to market a viral campaign through YouTube instead of Facebook (a la OK Go) and see if the results would have been the same.

I think the two most important projects from this class were LinkedIn and the website, because both are great ways to present oneself professionally on the Internet. Because more and more job openings are found online, and interviews are sometimes held online as well, it’s imperative that we learn to upload our resume and examples of our work for potential employers to see. I finally got my LinkedIn account at 100%, and I’m still adding connections. My website took me a long time to complete, and often I became extremely frustrated with DreamWeaver and the whole process. For the most part, I knew what I wanted to do but I couldn’t figure out how to execute it; I think I’m the least tech-savvy person in this class. I am proud of my site, though I realize it’s far from perfect. Still, I successfully uploaded and attached my audio and video samples, .pdf-ed my writing samples, and wrote a resume. I wish I had done it on Wordpress though, because then I could edit and update the site from my own computer. Plus, DreamWeaver was pretty confusing for me most of the time.

Overall, I’ve realized that social networking is an important tool for communicating to others on a wide spectrum. I would have liked to have written more blogs for the practice and experience of it, but I realize I can do this on my own time and don’t necessarily need a class to write blogs. It also would have been nice if we had gotten around to wikis, but I didn’t mind the extra time to work on my website. As a communications major, I thought this course was a good introduction to social media, and it’s beneficial to have this knowledge as more and more people turn to the Internet for information and entertainment.

I’ll admit it. I had my doubts about this class at first because I wasn’t too sure about having a twitter page and what not. But as I look back at it, I really enjoyed coming to this class.

I made a twitter page. For the longest time, I fought it. I didn’t want it. And it took me a while to figure out how I could use it. I know that a lot of it is sharing stuff from your life that no one cares about, but from experience, I have learned that it really is a good way to get news quickly. The other day when my cell phone was acting up, my friend good on twitter and found out that a tower was down close by and that’s why my service wasn’t working.

As far as facebook is concerned, again, I didn’t know how it would fit into an academic setting. It wasn’t until the viral marketing campaign that I learned the power and influence of facebook. I made a facebook campaign for the weekly radio show that I co-host. We got up to 182 fans from all over the US. Today, we got a request from one of my high school friends who goes to college in California. It is amazing how facebook can keep people in touch.

My LinkedIn is still in its infancy. I know that it is more a professional site, so I think it is somehthing I might come back to when I am trying to go into the professional field, but not something that I will use right now.

I was pretty happy with how my website turned out. I was able to include my resume, some of my social networking sites, and some clips from the newspaper. I thought this was the most important project we worked on in the semester. It’s something that I can maybe include when I email perspective employers and say, hey, look at my work. It is convenient for them and me.

It’s good that we did some blogging in the class, but I would have liked to do a lot more of it just to get more experience under my belt. Here are my blog posts. When I went to interview for internships for the summer, they asked me if I had blogged before. Luckily I could say yes because of this class, but it is something that I really need more work at if I want to be good at it.

I think the best thing about social networking is that it can be used in a personal and professional setting. Businesses use it to connect to and advertise to whomever they think will use their products. Other people use it keep in contact with old friends or to keep up with current ones.

I absolutely loved this class. Learning about web design and various social networking sites was very useful and I feel I will retain the information for a long time. I have always wanted to make my own website, especially since we get free space from the college. I also feel that knowing at least a little bit about web design is vital to the success of a communications student.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with my final website. I really liked the simple and clean design and layout, which I prefer over a complicated design. The only thing I would have changed was to be able to post my layout designs as a picture, instead of a PDF. Additionally, with the PDF links, I wish I could have them open up in a new browser window. I cannot wait to take 310 and learn more in depth about making a website in Dreamweaver.

As far as the social networking portion of the class, I felt it was very useful to learn about the various ways facebook and twitter can be used. I thought the viral marketing campaign was useful also. I thoroughly enjoyed my competition with Sam Alleman and thought it was a good exercise to learn about viral marketing campaigns.

As for twitter, it was good for us to learn about using the microblog because it is a trend that is growing worldwide and is changing the way people obtain their news. As a communications major, it is vital that I understand this change and how various news stations can roll with the change.

I feel that Linkedin is an important social networking site to use. It is a heck of a lot more professional than facebook and can be useful in finding a future employer. I’m glad that I finally learned the secret of getting a linkedin profile to 100% completeness.

Overall, I believe this class was very useful to my being a communications major. I will miss the ridiculous conversations that went on via twitter. And when Dr. Helb said something crazy and it was tweeted about 10 times. I will never forget this class.

All of this has been fun. I can legitimately say that I learned a lot and that now I’m more interested in taking Communications classes. I’ve learned useful things about basic technology and internet manipulation (of which I was quite the novice at. I still am, but not to quite so bad a degree). I actually feel more prepared to enter the professional writing community.

• Twitter. I actually thought I would hate this site, but I was apparently a bit too judgemental. I still think it’s silly to update everyone about the daily goings of my life (who cares?), but it’s an incredible tool in advertising events and organizations.
• Facebook. I really don’t feel like I have to say anything about this, other than that the constant updates and changes to the site are annoying.
• Linkedin. I’m really happy about this site. My facebook is not professional and having a second, more appropriate profile for future employers to peruse will be greatly advantageous to their opinion of me. I have a lot of work to do with it though. The annoying “% complete” bar on the right made me realize how inadequate my experience is.
• Viral marketing. For this project I made a facebook group for CRA, a campus organization that I’ve recently become more interested in. I wanted to get a little more involvement with the group because it does do a lot for the residences but is very under appreciated. Twitter was also useful in helping to advertise the organization, but I feel like viral marketing is not my forte.
• Social networking. It’s important. See the above bulleted sections. It keeps you connected. Makes it easier to reach people you’d otherwise never communicate with. Oh, I did end up creating another social networking site for myself, Flickr, in order to help present some of my photography on my final website project. I don’t think I’ll use this site as “social” networking but it is a type of networking that will be useful to my future career.
• My final website. I absolutely loved this project and feel really impressed with myself. I know it’s not the greatest site, but it’s at least presentable, especially compared to my last version created in Microsoft Word. Yeah. I’m pretty sure Helb just cringed. But once again, this assignment has provided me with a professional piece to display to my future employers. I feel like this assignment is something I can take with me beyond my time at Etown. It’s a solid foundation for my future on the interweb.

Mostly I thought this class was practical and interesting. I enjoyed it. Going to miss some of the weirdest conversations shouted from behind computer screens, but I’m sure I’ll be reading some awkward tweets from everyone long after this class has ended.

By the way, everyone take my COLLEGE PROWLER SURVEY. Please. It is basically a catalog of student reviews, so it’ll help give you a more accurate picture. You might even use it to find some good scholarships or to look into some grad schools. You do need to register, but it won’t spam you. If you’d like, forget about it after doing it and delete your account July 1st. I don’ care. Just help me with my internship!!!

This class definitely made me more aware of all the ways to connect out there. For the first time, I signed up for a Twitter account and LinkedIn, and I conducted a viral marketing campaign on Facebook.

If I had not taken this class, I probably would never have done Twitter, but I’m glad I did. It was a neat way to communicate, especially with others in the class, especially during class. I also would not have utilized Facebook to the extent I did in the viral marketing campaign. I created an event, invited friends, and then reached out to them to invite their friends too. It’s really interesting to see the spiraling effect that campaigns like this can cause.

I also enjoyed creating an account on LinkedIn, as it made me feel like a real person. Professionals with jobs use LinkedIn, so I think I will definitely continue to be a part of that community after college. I will not continue with Twitter; I will definitely keep my Facebook, which I have had since before coming to college.

Social networking is a very important thing. I learned in this class that employers do not necessarily think negatively of you just because you are on Facebook or Twitter. It’s about embracing social networking, not shunning it, and using it for positive purposes. Lots of people find jobs and internships through Facebook and Twitter. Like everything else in life, these sites are beneficial if used correctly and used in moderation.

My website was very difficult to make, as I had never used DreamWeaver before, and I did not enjoy this project. For my next website, I plan to use a site like WordPress that will facilitate the process, as I don’t like DreamWeaver at all. However, what I did like was choosing all the links, writing the bio, uploading my resume, adding a picture, etc.

I like the idea of having a site that is all about me to show potential employers so that they can see my work and, in a way, get to know me. I just would not use this approach again. Overall I enjoyed the different sites I was exposed to the past few months, and as the semester ends, I can consider myself not only a writer, but a writer for new media.

For this assignment I actually did two things to help promote this organization. The first thing I did was upload a video to YouTube that I personally made that describes the various things that this organization does. The second thing that I did was make a Facebook group to help recruit new members as well as inform current members of events that are going on.  My initial goal for the Facebook group was about 20 members. This is the case because I realized that this is a special interest group that not the “everyday Joe” would be interested in. Another reason why the number is so low is due to the fact that most of the members of the flotilla are older and do not use Facebook. However, I was able to convince some of them to join so that they could check out the group. When I added the video on to Youtube, my initial goal was to gain 100 views. Currently the video is at 167 so I am very pleased with that. I think that over all this assignment went well for me considering the organization that I was working with. I was able to grant an administrative spot to one of the women in the Flotilla and she is very excited to start using it. In addition to using Facebook and YouTube the Flotilla is also interested in using Twitter. I personally put a Tweet out about the video. Over all I believe that the campaign was very successful and will continue to develop as a member of the organization takes interest in promoting the organization through various social networking sites.

Check out the video below!

United States Coast Guard Aux. Flotilla 44

For my viral marketing project, I highlighted a campaign called “Rep. Scott Boyd’s Pink Hair for Breast Cancer Challenge.”  This campaign is a challenge from Rep. Scott Boyd for $10,000 to be raised for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition (PBCC).  If the goal is met, he will dye his hair pink for the first home run derby on July 1st.

The overall goal is to raise $10,000 for the Coalition.  With this campaign, I wanted to reach out to people outside of the primary audience of the PBCC.  I created an event page on Facebook for the campaign.  This page was a way to spread the message to non-conventional constituents.  All of my personal Facebook friends in addition to the friends of the PBCC staff were invited to the “event.”

At the time of this posting, there are 61 people “attending” the event with 122 people “maybe attending.”  With this event, it will appear on the Facebook homepage of those who are attending or maybe attending until it ends on July 1st.  This serves as a reminder for people to take a look at the campaign page.  Prior to the creation of the Facebook event, a total of $475 donated.  At the time of this posting, a total of $640 has been donated.  As a bonus, the Facebook Page has increased its connections as an indirect benefit.  At the beginning of the campaign, the page had 2,171 fans.  Now the page has 2,252 fans.

The campaign will continue until July 1st to try and raise $10,000 for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition.  The PBCC is doing a push to encourage its Facebook friends to invite 10 friends to donate $10.  This way it can increase it’s fan base on Facebook and reach additional people.

For our viral marketing campaign, Brittney Paulshock and I created a Facebook group to raise donations for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) disease. We are targeting the Multiple Sclerosis Bike Challenge that will take place on May 23, 2010. This bike challenge is a 50 mile race that will take place in Chestertown, Maryland. The overall goal is to raise money for the Society, and all proceeds will go directly towards the disease.

The Facebook donations group was inspired by Brittney’s farther, who was diagnosed with MS in 1994. Facebook is a useful social media tool that has proven beneficial in raising awareness. With close consideration to the audience we are trying to reach and get money donations from, Brittney and I created the “group” using her mother’s account (who has more “friends” on Facebook and contacts who are aware of the disease than Brittney or myself).

The page we designed provides an in depth description of the event as well as a link to the M.S. website for “friends” of Facebook to make a donation. Brittany’s mom created an event on Facebook last year and successfully raised over $1,000 in donations. The goal for this campaign is to raise over $1,500 in donations and raise awareness of the bike event. By targeting a specific audience who either suffers from the disease or knows someone who has suffered, we increase the chance of reaching our $1000 goal.

Finally, by becoming a “fan” of national MS Society Maryland Chapter on Facebook, we are showing an appreciation and partnership with this group.