Writing for New Media

So, it’s the end of the semester? It’s crazy how fast this semester has passed by. I could have sworn summer vacation just ended and I was preparing for classes to begin. Now it’s that time of year where everyone is rushing around to get things done, study and finish up odds and ends. However, looking back, it’s crazy to think of all the stuff and experiences I have accomplished over these three short months.

One thing that I am ecstatic about is having the opportunity to interview two well known bands: Blessthefall and Chiodos. Not to mention that they are probably two of my favorite bands. Since this is what I want to get into after I graduate, I am so fortunate to have my foot in the door so-to-speak.

Right from the beginning the whole process was a little nerve wracking for me. It’s the first impression so typing up those email to send had to say so much while saying as little as possible to get the point across. It was also important because not only is it a first impression, but I also wanted to build a solid relationship with the record label for future instances.

The whole ride there I was a nervous wreck. I kept going through all of the things I wanted to say over and over, while thinking I’m in over my head because I was there by myself and have no one to fall back on. And then there was doubt. Would my recorder not work properly? What if I thought I was recording, but when I played it back I actually recorded nothing? Did I make sure I charged both batteries on my camera just in case? I must have went over every worst case scenario.

As I neared the venue I decided it was time to focus on nothing, clear my mind and listen to the music playing in the background. Ironically enough I heard Chiodos’ new single “Caves” playing. I say ironic not because it was a song off the new album of one of the bands I would be interviewing shortly, but because the lyrics were the ones that inspired me to have the courage and actually do all of this in the first place. “When you’re afraid, when you’re afraid, take a chance, don’t let it weigh you down. You gotta get out. Stop hiding in the shadows.”

When I finally got to the venue I had my “game face” on and it was time for business. After I contacted the first tour manager, it was go time. No holding back now. No longer nervous, I went into auto-pilot and focused in on the task at hand. As soon as the band arrived I put on my best smile and just went with it. The interview went great. As soon as I was finished with the interview the band actually said that they thought my questions were really fun and they genuinely liked the questions because they weren’t the stereotypical questions they hear all the time.

The second interview went even better. Now that I had just finished one, I knew more of what to expect.  The greatest part of the second interview was the back and forth, so it wasn’t such a one sided interview. They even asked me a question to see how other people took in their new music video and if I got the twist at the end like everyone was supposed to get.

However, by far the best part of the whole experience was standing between the stage and the barricade. It was the best feeling standing there that close to the band with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Would I get that one shot? Would I get pummeled by crowd surfers? With all of the rush and fear, I was living the dream. I also got to hang out with the one band after the show and talk a bit and I got a few business cards from everyone in the process.

The next day (and week for that matter), I was so excited to run through all of my tape and see what worked and what could be cut. The one thing I learned about myself: I use meaningless words way too often. Hey, I guess you have to learn the from mistakes right? At least I could edit most of them out.

After it was all said and done (and a handful of very long nights), I finally produced two podcasts: one for Blessthefall and the other for Chiodos. On top of finishing the two podcasts, I also made two videos (one of BTF and the other Chiodos) of the footage I took of each of the performances as well as making an album of all the pictures from the show (here and here).

Hell, even one of my pictures was even chosen by the one record label for their newsletter as the featured photo. My first show interviewing, and I kind of get published! I will say that if there is one thing that I could have done differently, I would have watermarked my name on that photograph because nowhere on the newsletter does it have my name.

Band interview aside, I also did a lot of class work. Balancing both though was rough because it wasn’t like I was getting paid to produce all of the work I did, but it was above and beyond my class work and took time away from other things. However, I just convinced myself that I am building a relationship with record labels and all of this work can be added to my portfolio.

I also did a lot of tweeting this semester. Not that that’s any different than any other semester, but I’d say I used it more as a communication tool than I have ever before. I also communicated a little bit with the one band through twitter which was very cool in my opinion because they actually liked some of my pictures.

And then there is facebook. The only productive thing that I have gained out of facebook is creating a page and keeping it updated for my radio show. It’s a place where I can post articles the people who want to learn more about the articles, as well as communicating with my followers. Other than that, it has been nothing but getting me into trouble. And when I mean trouble, I mean being my number one procrastinating tool.

Lastly, I produced three websites for the class requirements, the big one being my website for a local band Shotgun, No Blitz. I originally had high hopes and expectations for what I wanted to do with this website. I have always seen band sites and thought that they are amazing so I wanted to replicate that as much as possible. Unfortunately, the more I worked on the site, the more I realized that some stuff I just didn’t know how to do which was the annoyingly frustrating. I am proud of my final product and how the site turned out. I just wish I had more time and knowledge to do what I set out to do.

The other two sites are full of links. The first was a website that featured most of my favorite links. I liked how it turned out, but I was just disappointed how the colors turned out. When I was putting it all together the colors meshed much more than what it looks like now. It wasn’t terribly horrible, I just wish the colors stayed true.

The second site that I made I am proud to say that for the most part I coded all by myself. It took a lot of figuring out, but after a while I got the hang of it and the certain rules I had to follow. I am very glad how it turned out and further more, I think it is a great tool for me in the future to use for a portfolio!

I guess what this semester boils down to is experience and practice. Some of the things I did/ learned these past few months can only be perfected by the time you put into it and doing it over and over. You have to make mistakes and take chances because that is the only way you can learn to overcome them. Besides, who wants to be perfect anyways? It’s highly overrated.

At first the title of this course scared me…”Writing for New Media.”  The word “writing” was the key word.  But after browsing the syllabus, I was relieved.  The class turned into more about online creativity and design.  This ending up being something that I have a great interest in.

I have become a social media fiend over the passed two years.  From my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and foursquare accounts, I have become more connected to my iPhone.  Yes, I know people didn’t think this would be possible, but it has become more of an extension of my arm.  Analyzing the effectiveness of a marketing campaign to the creation of social media accounts are all important things to know when entering the current job market.  Since graduation is approaching fast, I feel that this class has certainly helped feed my social media bug.

It’s always interesting to receive input from other people.  With social media, it’s just that: input from human beings.  In class, it was great to see the approach each person took to his or her viral marketing plan.  Each person had different experience and was seeking different outcomes.  Personally, my viral marketing plan had a slight impact on the PA Breast Cancer Coalition, but wasn’t as successful as the outcome of the great Fimmano vs. Alleman Facebook battle.

For my personal website, I juggled with different approaches.  I started by wanting to create a blog to having an online portfolio to an online resume.  I finalized my current website to be an online resume with examples of my work.  I also have links to my social media websites to show my involvement.  In the future I plan on expanding my website to include more, but for now, it achieves my goal: assisting in the search for a full time job.

To all of the seniors, good luck on the job search!  To all of the underclassmen, good luck with the rest of your time at Etown!  And to Dr. Helb, thanks for always helping out even when it may have been a common-sense question!

My freshman year at Elizabethtown College, I never thought that I would be writing a blog post to officially close my college career, but now here I am, 4 years later.  Everyone told me when I was starting school to “Make the most of your 4 years in college, they go by so fast!”  As a freshman, I thought this statement was farfetched to say the least.  Now however, I realize just how true that statement was.  Here I sit, with the past 4 years in my rear view and graduation just a short week away…  Anyway, enough reminiscing.

This semester, I have a lot of fun in #etown315, and I’ve learned a few things too.  During the course of this semester, I have completely redesigned my website (which I am currently working on redesigning again…), launched a successful viral marketing campaign, learned a lot about using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as both fun social networking tools as well as potential ways to capture that illusive “real world” job.  I am eager to use the skills that I have learned and expanded upon in #etown315 to assist in building my portfolio and hopefully finding me a job shortly!

The major project of this class was working on creating a personal website and online portfolio.  While I did have an existing website, I was not happy with the layout or design of the site, and thought that overall it was extremely bland.  My current site is created on a Wordpress back-end, with a standard template with custom CSS edits that I performed to get it to look just the way I wanted.  As of right now (1:56am on May 14th), I am exploring the idea of changing themes to something more customizable.  In order to do that I just now switched from a site hosted by Wordpress to a Wordpress based site hosted by another provider.  This switch of hosting providers will allow me the flexibility to add custom themes and plugins for the site, in order to make it exactly what I want.  Look for the new(er) website to be complete in a few days.  For now, however, I am extremely happy with the way that the site currently looks.

My favorite assignment this semester was to create a viral marketing campaign for whatever we wanted.  I decided to use my current job at the Inc. Village of Port Jefferson as a spring board for my assignment.  By using the Village’s Facebook and Twitter pages, I encouraged people to visit Port Jefferson and snap photos of their family and friends and post the photos on our Facebook page.  Promotions for this “event” were done strictly sing Facebook and Twitter.  Overall, we received over 30 submissions.  Going into this project, I had no idea what to expect, and would have been happy with 10 responses.  Our initial post on Twitter was retweeted 12 times by both Port Jefferson residents and visitors!

So as the semester, and college as a whole, draws to an end, I am grateful for the education that I have gained from Elizabethtown College’s Department of Communications.  I was very excited to take Writing for New Media because it displays the fact that the department is moving in the direction of the future.  I hope that the department will continue in this direction in the future to serve the needs of the underclassmen and incoming first year students.

So starting off in this class I didn’t have a clue what to expect.  Sitting there the first day I thought who is this crazy teacher and what did I get myself into (no offense Dr. Helb).  But after having gone through an entire semester of this class I have to say that it was one of the classes that I most appreciated. 

Designing a website has opened me up to a whole new world.  I had never heard of wordpress let alone even thought of desiging a web page.  After redesigning ECTV’s website, I have a new found love for wordpress.  It has inspired me to keep a blog about my summer internship and adventures in NYC.  I had changed pictures and added things and did whatever I wanted to my blog.

I knew about facebook and linkedin, but when I heard I had to get a twitter for this class, I knew that I would become instantly addicted.  My predictions came true when Dr. Helb asked how we were doing with twitter and he said it was scary how fast I picked it up.  I think that just goes to show how technologically savvy our generation is.  We grew up with this stuff and even though we have never touched a program or a website or social networking site before, we can figure it out no problem.  That brings up the question…how does our knowledge and comfortableness with technology affect the ways we interact face-to-face?  I often think about that question.

Viral marketing scares me!  Just the thought of how many people are looking at 1 thing because of 1 link or 1 person is outrageous.  It’s scary how fast people pick up on this stuff and how fast word goes around about a certain video or organization.  It’s a very scary thought to me…

Although I feel that the internet and the blogosphere and “all of this” is a wonderful idea/concept for the future because that is the direction in which our society is going, I think it is somewhat deteriorating to our bonds and personal face-to-face connections with each other.  People (including myself) are becoming obsessed with the internet world and not really taking as big a role in the actual world as they probably should…

When starting this class I had no idea what to expect, and this made me nervous. But the fact that the Communications department was finally offering a class that was made for “keeping up with the times” rather than the standard Intro to Com or Public Speaking class. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot through the broad depth and variety of all the Com classes over the past four years. But I was thrilled to see that this course was being offered, and by someone who is younger, more hip, and can relate to the students in a Facebook/ Linkedin/ Twitter kind-of-way.

Throughout the course, we’ve learned the importance of these social networking sites, as well as how to create and manage our own sites. Twitter became a must have from day one. While I wasn’t a huge proponent of this site- mostly because I didn’t know the benefits of having an account, or really what it was- I have learned a lot about it over the course of the semester. We didn’t focus much time on Facebook (as we were threatened we’d fail for the day if we spent time on Facebook and our email rather than listening to Dr. Helb!) but we did spend a good bit of time developing our Linkedin pages. I already had an account prior to this class, but I learned some more benefits to this networking site and was able to develop my page.

When first starting our websites, I was completely lost. I couldn’t even log onto Dreamweaver to open my page, and finding my material was a whole other story. While I’m not the most proficient Mac user, I have gotten a general understanding for the system over my three years in the department. But this program felt like it was in another language. After taking a few steps back and really working on it piece by piece, I became much better with the program and less frustrated. And the feeling of having a complete website is really neat. I will definitely plan to go back to the site and update it from time to time.

During the class we also completed a viral marketing campaign. I worked closely with a classmate to create a Facebook fan page to raise money and awareness for a disease my partner’s father has. Facebook has been a very effective medium raising money in the past, so we decided this was the best route to travel. I believe the campaign is still in progress, as we will accept donations until the bike race held in June. Creating this campaign helped show me the importance of viral marketing. There are so many ways to reach an audience today, and the more interactive, the better. Just over the past three years so many different programs have appeared and grown in popularity. I’m very curious to see what the next few years will bring.

Overall, I took a lot away from this class. My only real complaint is with structure. If there isn’t structure in a class, my motivation level drops to an all-time low (and I swear that has nothing to do with me graduating in a week!) I’m the type of person that likes to know what the agenda is each day, and there really wasn’t much of that with this class. Besides that, I really enjoyed it. My favorite was probably learning how to create and implement a website. Seeing the final product is a great feeling of accomplishment. I also enjoyed learning about the perks and benefits of Youtube, Linkedin and Twitter. Finally, the blog we created and managed throughout the semester helped keep us on our toes. Dr. Helb was a great professor and it was nice having someone we could all relate to.

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!!!

For the most part, I had some prior knowledge of each of the subject areas we discussed in class.  Through the class I have expanded that knowledge:

On Twitter: I learned that it can be used to catch up on the news, find out events that are happening right now, and to follow celebrities.  I received a direct message from someone who is somewhat of a “YouTube celebrity” which makes me sound like a geek, but I was excited to hear from them. 

Also, I really enjoyed learning about the basics behind the creation of Twitter and learning that it was just a small team that was responsible for the site and they are highly accessible.  We talked about skyping them, but never got around to it.

On Facebook: I didn’t expand too much on Facebook, but I did end up creating a fan page for my viral marketing campaign and explored how to use that to its fullest extent (more on this later). 

On LinkedIn: I realized how much Linkedin can do for me in the business world.  I never knew all the aspects of the site which I would not have explored if we had not had to expand our profile past a certain percentage. 

And added accounts on Tumblr and Bebo which I found through the class but they were not part of the class.  There were other areas that I expanded my knowledge in:

In viral marketing:  With our viral marketing campaign I got a great response from family and friends and ‘friends of friends’.  I created a Facebook group called “Your Creative Spark” which gave a creative outlet for people to use on an everyday basis

In social networking: I knew before the class that social networking is important.  It is even more so now that I am graduating.  I want a way to stay in touch and also a way to get my ideas and plans set in motion.  Social networking is an outlet for me to stay in touch and bounce ideas off of everyone I know and then some.

In the creation of a personal website/online portfolio:  My personal website was the biggest challenge for me.  I had one class early in college where we worked on a website, but it was very basic and it was a completely different program.  In Com 315 I feel that I have expanded my knowledge of how the website process works.  For my second attempt ever at creating my own personal website, I think it is pretty nice.  A little rough around the edges, but it works.

I learned so much in this class and really enjoyed it.  It was a whole different field of study for me and I only wish I would have taken it sooner in my college career so that I could have taken more communications classes.  I really appreciated the one on one support and the help I received from my classmates as well even though I am not a communications major.  This was a great class to go out of college on and I feel as though I am a bit closer to being ready for the real world.

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.