Marketing and Audience Engagement
A big part of running social media is paying attention to analytics and what content our audience engages with. My attention to analytics carried into my role as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the iliad where I have implemented what I learned to help build a stronger audience for our magazine. Using analytics from Squarespace, Facebook and Instagram I have learned how to market our publication to the student body of Clarke Central High School.
Social Media
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Senior Spotlights
During my time running social media for our program, I started a segment that we call senior spotlights. Spotlights are concise Instagram posts that we do during the spring semester that highlights all of the seniors in our program. Senior spotlights allow us to feature our staff and market program to our audience for incoming and new students.
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Social Media Analytics
During my time as the social media coordinator, I regularly used social media analytics to gauge our audience engagement for our page and specific posts to see what was being interacted with. I used analytics to see what we should be producing more of in order to ensure maximum engagement. My focus for analytics was on Instagram because that is the platform the majority of our student body uses.
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Teacher Appreciation Week
During Teacher Appreciation Week, I created this graphic asking our students to share some of their favorite Clarke Central High School teachers. The goal of the post was to both honor faculty members, as well as get kids interacting with the post. In the end, the post received a high amount of engagement from the student body.
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Magazine Promotion
Typically, when a new magazine comes out we walk around the school giving magazines to teachers and students. Due to COVID-19, we were unable to distribute our magazine and had to post the magazine online. In order to provide promotion on social media, I made a short video promotion featuring spread in the magazine to encourage our audience to go online and read issue 3 that our staff had worked diligently to produce.
Additional Content
Social Media Training
Because I served as the social media coordinator my sophomore year, I have had the opportunity to help train new staffers in that position. During this meeting, I helped the new staffers review and fully comprehend their job descriptions and metrics. I also walked them through the different types of posts we generate that get high engagement. Finally, I walked them through past NSPA winners and shared some professional accounts for them to review to generate engaging posts.
Lunch Table
During my time running social media, I decided to have a table outside of our school cafeteria to gain followers and spread the word about our publication. This past fall, the iliad held a similar table to increase awareness and sell magazines to students. During this event, we gained around 70 followers on our social media and sold several magazines to students and teachers.
Photo by Lucas Donnelly
Mailing List
This year, the iliad designed a mailer to be sent out to current and past donors to get donations for our program. Donations is our primary fund to print the magazine, so it is essential we raise enough money so that we can print in color. I spent time researching past donors, locating addresses, and then organizing all the data in a spreadsheet to send over to the printers in order to get our mailer out to as many people as possible.
Booster Club Meetings
As the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the iliad, I am responsible for attending Booster Club meetings to express the needs of our program. During these meetings, I update parents on the status of our program, discuss funding for the magazine and the money we have available for additional spending of needs such as supplies or design costs. The booster club also informs me if I need to do anything, such as update our information on their website.
Photo by Lucas Donnelly
Marketing Project
In order to get subscriptions and donations, the entire ODYSSEY staff participates in the marketing project at the start of the school year, which requires us to think about our individual “spheres of influence” and market subscriptions, our program and magazine to family, friends, neighbors, etc. For the iliad, we conduct a similar project to gain donations for our program. The iliad requires all staff members to reach out to a minimum of five people for donations and in turn, donors receive a magazine and a mention on our donors page.