This is the second in my series of blog topics listed by Chris Brogan on his website. I’m going to try doing these in order, but I was reading through some of the topics and they might require a bit of research or something so I can do them justice.

So, without further ado - Ways I Embrace My Audience

Truth be told, I’m not sure I have an audience. This blog was intended to be a student-written blog about life here at Penn State Harrisburg. The link to this blog is on the Admissions website for all interested students, parents, etc to look at. I do get hits, I can check that, so people ARE reading. I don’t know that I get repeat readers. I do know that I have some faculty members who read it every now and then. But the target audience is future or possible students coming to PSH and/or their parents.

No one tells me what to write about, except “penn state harrisburg”. So, I try to embrace my “audience” by talking about what is going on around campus. I am one of 3 student bloggers, each of us has a different perspective about college and campus life. I am a “non-traditional” (read.. older) commuter student, not unique by any means, but different than my blogger friends. I’m originally from Philadelphia, I’ve been in Harrisburg for just a little over 3 years, so I talk about the differences between the two places. I also talk about my internship/job here on campus, working with the website. Which is a lot of fun. Of course, what kind of student blog would this be if I didn’t talk about classes, professors, clubs and events stuff. Its like.. free advertisement for everything going on here, and a LOT of course talk up. If I really like a class, I really talk a lot about why the class is good or why the professor is good. If a class isn’t so good, I don’t bash the professor or the class, I just talk about why I don’t like the course or professor. I have been lucky with the classes I’ve taken, I’ve had good professors, I may not always like the class itself (like subject matter) but the professors have been good at trying to make it not so bad.  The best example of me trying to be objective about a class I hated, and a professor that was so-so (lol) is that for the last 7 weeks I have been blogging about Calculus that I was taking online.

I try to think about questions that students or parents ask me while on a tour or while I’m doing a student panel, and I try to address those just in case someone reading didn’t think of that question or couldn’t get to the tour or panel or maybe they hadn’t contacted the school for a tour yet and something I’ve already answered makes them call (I can hope!).

If I can think of something Penn State Harrisburg related to write about, no events to advertise, or classes to talk about, like this summer (like now), I usually talk about what I’m doing. I write a lot about Harry Potter and Twilight, or World of Warcraft. It shows the outside-academia me, the more fun me. The things outside of school that keep me sane.

In my “about me” page, and in posts when I think of it, I give my email address for people to contact me with suggestions for topics or questions for me to answer since comments have to be disabled. Not that I have gotten emails, well I got one email from someone who wanted to know if the campus community would be interested in his band. But still, I’m always open to questions and suggestions.

I do have other blogs, a livejournal that I’ve had for years. That “audience” was mostly friends I chatted with, so it was pretty much a “heres how my day/weekend/month went” and so on.. kinda boring I’d guess to anyone who didn’t know me. Lately I have been cross posting these posts, usually with the PSH-specific stuff edited out. Recently I created a Tumblr blog (linked in the sidebar) that I’m cross-posting these blog-topic posts in hopes to get more people. Right now, its just my one friend and I who have them. We need followers. lol Its like twitter only a blog, but its cool.

Check in soon for a blog on Should My Town Use Social Media.