Media Participation Project

For my media participation project I worked at the Her Campus Maryland online magazine. Her Campus is an club run throughout the country by all different schools. The Maryland chapter has two editors that are undergraduate students here, as well as woman who oversees the magazine as a whole. Once a month, each Her Campus writer receives an email with potential story topics to write about. We may also submit our own ideas. It is up to us how many stories we would like to take on each month. So far in the two months I have been with them, I have had four stories published.
For each story we are given a deadline, like any other media publication. My first story was about a sorority girl here on campus who started her own spray tanning business in her dorm room. I had to come up with a series of interview questions, and get pictures of her business cards. I also had to write some background information on her too, so that my readers could better understand where this inspiration came from. In our recent meeting my editor told me that this story received 350 views, which is a lot for my first article, and for a campus celebrity story.
My favorite, and more difficult, story I wrote was about simple and healthy recipes for college students. Living on your own is not easy, especially when it comes to eating right. We have so many temptations around us that it is so much easier to choose fattening foods over healthier choices that take more time and effort to make. I combined some recipes that I use myself, as well as some from the website shape.com. I had to rewrite every recipe individually to make it more appealing to read, rather than a boring step by step process. I also had to research the calories, as well as the time length it takes to make these recipes.
Throughout this experience, I am learning how to network, and to get my stories out there. As a magazine we use a lot of public relations to reach our audience members, since Her Campus is fairly new to Maryland. Some techniques I have used was by posting my article are social media networks. My goal is to make one of my articles go viral. Another thing I will be doing with Her Campus Maryland is to engage our readers through social media, by setting up an Instagram account to display the fashions of University of Maryland. This way Her Campus can reach readers on all different mediums. I enjoy writing for Her Campus Maryland, and I will most likely continue to write for them!