Marketing and Audience Engagement
Yearbook promotions
Leading up to our yearbook distribution day, I wanted students to be excited to see the book. While stuffing each book with inserts, we posted a video showing the hustle the day before distribution, gaining the attention of more than 260 students.
Yearbook distribution day
For yearbook distribution day, we planned a "yearbook party" to hand out books. We had to adapt to pouring rain last minute. I coordinated cookies, games, photo props, karaoke and managed what staffers were helping with what jobs.
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This being my first year as yearbook editor, I initially underestimated how big of a day it would be. For this year I feel prepared to put on an even better distribution day and promote it even more.
Online analytics
From January to March of last year in the midst of my live coverage of school closures, our Twitter account saw some of its highest engagement of the year. We know that breaking news draws attention because our coverage is valuable to readers.
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I continued to build engagement using this platform along with Instagram to reach the widest audience possible.​
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​These are two Instagram posts used to promote stories on The Budget's Instagram. Both did exceedingly well compared to other posts. I've learned with the LHS audience that posts featuring student faces typically do better than text-heavy graphics.
Marketing myself as a journalist
As I started reporting on things outside of my school, I began to meet local political figures, school board members and families. I make an effort to form relationships before I interview someone to preserve the relationship for the future.
​To me, this doesn't seem like an impossible thing to do, because it comes down to the first impressions you make. These relationships with community members have come in handy more times than I can count. Just by talking to people and showing you are approachable and care about their story markets you as a good journalist, and one they can trust in the future.
I recently saw this pay off in the kind comments our school board president offered our program, my adviser and myself at a board meeting during which I was recognized as the Kansas Student Journalist of the year. “I think you're going to wrestle the moon,” school board president Kelly Jones said. “You’re really extraordinary.”
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I also market myself through my Instagram photo account, @mayasmithphotos. Engagement with the community has grown through this platform.
This video includes my adviser and I being recognized by our school board for recent awards we had received at the state and national level. (31:00)
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Praise from the pros
This message was sent to my adviser from one of our program's alums, saying the live reporting and stories written about the school closures was "very impressive." It goes to show how far marketing yourself and working hard can get you, and what connections can be made from it.
Coordinating a candidate forum
Planning and executing a candidate forum was a unique way to platform the journalism program and show a wider audience the work we do. Before school board elections in November, we hosted all 10 candidates seeking election to 5 open seats to take part in an election forum. All attended for the live-streamed event, which was covered by local professional media.
​Getting involved in elections is vital as a journalist and citizen, but also as a student. Bringing more information to our community about voting and local government is an important role I got to play for my school.
I helped contact the candidates, promote our event on social media and posted an overview of the candidates online prior to the forum. We also distributed a flier I created in-person.
The event reminded our community of the serious work we do as student journalists.
Supplement promotion on social media
As we wrapped up completing our spring yearbook supplement, I had to promote how students could get the last part of their 2023 yearbook.
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I created this graphic that had two small sneak peaks of the content and kept the design very simple and clear.
Yearbook promotions throughout the year
Throughout the year, we push hard with both digital and paper reminders for students who have not purchased a book yet.
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To keep books more affordable, we limit our design on our cover (which can often increase the price very, very fast). We manage to make award winning covers without the extra bells and whistles that other schools may have the funds for. This helps our yearbooks cost around $70 compared to nearby schools that cost upwards of $100.
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To make buying a book more equitable, we have an "Angel Donation" program where families or staff can donate a book to a student in need. We began donations during COVID, and match about 50 books to students per year.
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