When the Manhattan College chapter of Her Campus debuted two years ago there were only a handful of girls contributing to the popular college website. In just two years, MC Her Campus grew to have a strong staff of writers and an online presence in the Manhattan community. While the website is making strides with the girls on campus, some still might be asking what exactly is Her Campus?
Her Campus is a website generated to college-aged girls. It showcases different articles about issues that may be affecting girls of that age, as well as profiling different students on campus and what they are achieving. From dating, school, spring break essentials and any other issue that surrounds the everyday college girl, Her Campus has it covered.
“Its like the girl version of Buzzfeed,” sophomore writer Abby Welte said.
There are 12 girls that currently write and every week new articles ranging in different categories are split up between them all. Features, Blog, Campus Cutie and Campus Celebrity are the categories that the girls can write for. In order for the articles to take off, the girls share them on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and that is where the clicks start to add up.
“I really blew up social media with articles because that is the only thing people really look at,” senior and current president of MC Her Campus Alyssa Maccarrone said.
One way to utilize social media and generate traffic to the website is by profiling students on campus that people know. The Campus Cutie and Campus Celebrity sections showcase a student, male or female, on campus that is doing interesting things both on and off campus.
“I love the Campus Cutie/Celeb articles because if its someone on Facebook sees the article and it’s someone they know they are going to be interested and they’re going to want to click on it. It’s all about catering to your audience,” Maccarrone said.
Each week new faces and articles are brought to the website and so far the MC Her Campus is pulling about 4,000 hits per week and the numbers are continuing to rise. Each of the girls writes one or two articles a week on whatever they choose, which is why they like writing for the website.
“I like that you can write about whatever you want. It’s very free,” junior Lauren Sciarrotto said. “I also like how you can relate it to girls our age.”
“You get to brag about your favorite things about Manhattan,” Welte said. “I recently did a Campus Cutie on one of my friends and he got so many views which is really cool. Its fun because you get to write about the things you want to write and read about.”
In just two years Her Campus has gone from a website that no one knew about to something that pops up each week on everyone’s news feed. However, they are not an official club on campus– something that Maccarrone wants to change after she graduates this spring.
“I want to leave Her Campus on the track that it will definitely become a school club, that way we can do more cool events,” Maccarrone said. “I would love to continue to get followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook up and to keep going up.”
Even though Her Campus is not seen as an official club on campus, they have recently been taken on by the Public Relations on-campus club PRSSA. The club will be helping Her Campus with publicity and events for the school year.
If you want to report and write about what is happening on campus and in the everyday life of a “colliegiette,” email Alyssa Maccarrone at manhattan@hercampus.com to get started.