A random group of writers, wonks and tech-savvy business owners have connected and built a community that began using social media. But unlike some social media groups, the group I’m referring to is based here in the Lehigh Valley.
If you’re not reading what they’re writing, commenting and sharing on Twitter, blogs and Facebook, you’re missing out on some terrific independent feature, news and opinion writing and stunning regional photography. Their work does not replace traditional media, but complements it with a mixture of original reporting, opinions based on public meetings and others’ written words, and people sharing content with anyone who’d like to learn about their passions and interests. Many are transplants to the regio n like me, and bring a unique perspective and a love for their new home. They range from individual writers at home or at Starbucks on their laptops, to small business owners, to nonprofits or activists hoping to educate and/or stir up conversation about a subject. There are more bloggers in the region than I have room to write about here, so I’ll profile a few unique voices and hope you’ll discover others by following their work. Many of these bloggers received awards for their blogs in a contest hosted by The Morning Call earlier this year.
Individual bloggers have a voice
Jon Geeting (@jongeeting) got his start when two friends wanted to start a blog about the 2010 midterm elections and asked him to write it. A self-proclaimed political junkie, he agreed, and now runs the site Lehigh Valley Independent. Blogging has opened a lot of doors for Geeting, including getting a column at Patch.com, a paying gig. He’s also appeared on the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Business Matters talk show to argue about health care reform and on Alan Jennings’ Lehigh Valley Discourse radio show on WDIY to talk about blogging.
This experience has also enabled him to interview some really interesting public officials and provided a platform for sharing his “perspective of the generation who grew up after Hess’s and Bethlehem Steel closed,” including sharing best practices of other regions and cities and trying to show people what Valley governments could be doing to complement the positive changes we’re seeing.
Jaime Karpovich and Andrew Kleiner (@akleiner34) are each talented bloggers who write about their passions—vegetarian lifestyle and the environment, respectively—and how these passions intertwine with their health and personal lives. Kleiner, a 27-year-old student of Environmental Science at Muhlenberg College, has been writing his blog, Remember, since April 2009. He aims to spread ecological awareness and highlight environmental problems, local or national, to help find a common ground for everyone to stand on and affect real change. After penning a series on Allentown’s parks, Kleiner was invited to join the Allentown Environmental Advisory Council. Karpovich, who started her blog, Save the Kales!, in early 2010, first focused on cooking and recipes, and later more about her deep involvement in the local community and wider vegan and vegetarian community, as well as promoting kindness and self-acceptance. Her Heart of Steel City blog highlights some of the great things happening in the region, including restaurants and events. In addition to blogging, Karpovich can be found sprinkled in the local media (including Lehigh Valley Style) cooking up a (veggie) storm, teaching cooking classes in the community, and organizing this month’s Lehigh Valley VegFest and other activities on the South Side of Bethlehem.
Blog (/blôg/, n.):
A website on which an individual records opinions and information on an ongoing basis. (ref: “Web log”)
Twitter (/’twitər/, n.):
People use this popular instant messaging system to send text messages up to 140 characters in length to a list of followers. (A Twitter “handle” begins with an @ symbol.)
RSS Feed:
RSS (most commonly expanded as Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio and video—in a standardized format. I use Google Reader as my RSS feed, where I subscribe to the hundreds of websites and blogs that I regularly read.
Local Blogs:
ArtsLehigh
Christopher Elston Photography
Jeremy Littau’s website
(direct link to the J198 Spring
Semester Final Presentations)
Lehigh Valley Independent
Lehigh Valley Momma
Lehigh Valley Running Scene
Lehigh Valley Transplant
Lehigh Valley Tweetups
Lehigh Valley with Love
Little Pocket Guide
RememberLV
Save the Kales!
Local stay-at-home moms write two awesome blogs in my Google Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Jennifer Carl (@lvalleymomma) is a reformed shop-a-holic, bargain shopping diva, a self-proclaimed domestic goddess wannabe and desperate housewife. On Lehigh Valley Momma, Carl blogs about her life as a super-couponer, scoring deals on organic and fresh items, at local grocery stores and markets. Her self-deprecating humor, enthusiasm for exploring the region and affection for her family keep me reading day after day. Her blog drew the attention of Channel 69 News, who invited her to share her couponing secrets with their viewers last year.
Jill Forsythe (@lvrunningscene) developed an online running magazine for people living in and around the Lehigh Valley, with the goal of creating a sense of community among runners of all types and deliver up-to-the-minute news and information to her readers. Fast or slow, big or small, young or old, if you love running, you should be reading her Lehigh Valley Running Scene blog. Forsythe began running in order to lose some stubborn pregnancy weight and gain back the fitness she had lost over the years. Her site offers product reviews, contests, profiles of local runners, a list of local events and advice about all kinds of running-related topics, including running while pregnant, nutrition and preventing and overcoming injuries. Forsythe is a member of the Lehigh Valley Road Runners Club Board of Directors and is on the group’s Half Marathon Committee.
Lehigh University professor Jeremy Littau is adding more voices to the Twittersphere and blogosphere by teaching Lehigh’s J198 class, “Multimedia Reporting.” In the class, students apply their ability to gather information and report to all of the multimedia tools available on the Web. His students are required to research, create and produce original blog content, and join (and sometimes lead) conversations about local subjects on Twitter. Students in the spring J198 class blogged three times a week about a subject of their own interest. The blogs were posted online for anyone to read, and the students did a good job of building a community of interest. Before the final exam, Professor Littau implored the online community to choose a winner—and “Callie’s Culinary Corner,” a blog with restaurant reviews and recipe reports, was the winner. Students also produce multimedia sites that explore a topic or issue in depth, and the spring semester’s group covered local volunteer efforts, the Bethlehem coffee and culinary scenes, fitness and created a guide to some of the lesser-known things to do in the Lehigh Valley. I follow these students—nearly all transplants—and I am always learning about new things happening and enjoy the perspective of a young, curious audience.
And no LV blog review would be complete without a reference to George Wacker’s, Lehigh Valley with Love. This blog is the Lehigh Valley’s online late-night type of show, mocking local headlines and adding insult to injury to anyone who’s arrested for public drunkenness, driving their car into a building or letting a card game get out of hand. He leveraged his popularity by getting the most votes in the “Two Days in the Car” contest and winning the grand prize. Wacker (@LVwithlove) hit the big time when his Twitter parody of Bethlehem’s mounted police unit (MPU) made Philadelphia news in 2010. By poking fun at the horses that help officers patrol the city streets during Musikfest, he increased awareness of Musikfest, but his style of humor didn’t sit well with the MPU. The account, @BethlehemHorsePD, is now clearly marked as a parody, and was active again during last year’s Musikfest. Be warned: the humor on LVWL is NSFW (not suitable for work) and does not pull any punches.
Reaching a broader audience online
Business owners and nonprofit organizations have caught the blogging bug, too. There’s no simpler way to begin establishing yourself as a subject matter expert, or drumming up interest in daily specials, than by being an active member of the online community.
Michael Andreano (@mandreano) put himself in the heart of it by providing social media coaching services to Lehigh Valley companies. He started a series of local Twitter meetups in April 2009, known as “Tweetups,” bringing together local business owners, entrepreneurs, bloggers, media, techies and other community members.
If you go to the next Tweetup, you’re likely to find small business owners like Chris Elston (@celston), Vica Shparber (@blackforestdeli), Laini Abraham (@lainiabraham) and many others. Entrepreneurs like these have found commercial success, deeper connections to the community, and an alternative means of advertising and networking through their blog and Twitter activities. Elston’s visibility in the community has increased through his verdant support of the region’s Tweetup events.
Following his blog gives readers a peek into community events, weddings and local sights. Shparber’s Black Forest Deli, a tiny lunch spot on 7th Avenue in Bethlehem, has become ground zero for In Real Life (IRL) networking for the online community. Shparber keeps up with her existing customers on Twitter and Facebook and entices newbies to stop in by describing the day’s specials and mentioning who else dropped in. The Deli’s now-legendary Russian dinners bring together people from all corners of the Lehigh Valley to share a deliciously authentic meal at a communal table. Maybe you’ve seen Laini’s Little Pocket Guide inside businesses in Bethlehem and Easton—pocket-sized instruction manuals for enjoying and exploring the cities, updated and published annually since 2007. Abraham aims to connect locals and visitors alike to information that will help them enjoy the region. Abraham is one of the Lehigh Valley online community’s most active members, and her List of 9 Things To Do This Weekend in the Lehigh Valley is a must-read each week. On Abraham’s site, expect to read features about new restaurants and shops, and lots of beautiful photographs of downtown Easton.
No institute of higher learning has made a greater contribution to the local social media scene than Lehigh University. In addition to the school’s J198 class’ efforts, the ArtsLehigh (@artslehigh) blog is intended to be a place where conversation about why the arts are important to learning and developing one’s own voice and creativity at Lehigh University. It also challenges students to get off campus and explore the various arts and cultural opportunities in the region. ArtsLehigh’s founder, Silagh White, is inspired by other Lehigh Valley bloggers, and from a community on Twitter that keeps her connected and grounded. Her arts advocacy blog is intended to spark conversation and to promote stories that the school’s University Relations department can’t cover. A blog post she wrote about the Kevin Spacey speech in April increased readership by 700 percent. As the post went viral, she started to shake when she saw how folks were coming to the post. She’s received great feedback on it and the success has inspired her to do more.
My own blogging experience
I started Lehigh Valley Transplant in 2006, when I realized that many of my newcomer friends had the same complaints and questions—there is nothing to do around here, it is hard to meet new people, what is up with all the ‘fests? My blog began as a web journal of my own discoveries as I went along, and has developed into a website for examining trends and celebrating the arrival of new businesses, events and concepts, especially to downtown areas in cities and boroughs.
I don’t write every day, and I don’t allow all comments to be posted. I’ve developed a thick skin to criticism but I think on the whole, I have created a focal point for our “tribe,” which gives transplants like me an independent media outlet to follow to learn about their new home, by remaining positive and honest. The best part of the blogging experience has been hearing from readers, some of whom have become friends, and many of whom have created their own blogs. Now I’m my own media outlet, and I get tips and ideas from people I’ve never met and about places I’ve never been. I cover issues that appeal to a broad range of transplants—stay at home moms, foodies, sports junkies, art lovers and more. I am always learning about our region, and am eager to continue to share with my readers the things that make life in the Lehigh Valley unique and truly special.
by megan beste | illustration by marcie kent
