Marketing and Audience Engagement
We work so hard in all that we do for the journalism programs at West High, but it is also so important for us to share those achievements and projects. For me, I love to see what piques the interest of the students at West High and the community around us.
Bringing back a print publication to West High was a big day for a lot of us. This included former Wahawk Newspaper staff members, staff members who purchased their own papers when they were students at West, the next generation of student journalists and all of the students who helped create the first ever print magazine.
We had students lining the halls and running to the tables to get their copy as soon as they could, and within four minutes, the first edition of the print magazine was entirely gone.
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Photo by Nicole Goodman
Promoting the Print
When we decided that we wanted to do a print magazine, we made the decision to keep it a secret the best we could. Since many of the articles were already online, only one or two people needed to be told to keep the secret to themselves, and they did.
To tease that we had something planned, we had our advisor ring our bell, which is the typical tradition for staff members to do after publishing a story. Lots of students were talking and it was so difficult for us to keep the magazine a secret from our friends, but pulling it off made it all worth it.
On top of having our advisor ring the bell, the cover feature, Keegan Nystrom also got to join in on the tradition.
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Promoting Publications
Early on, we realized we had a lot of traction on social media. This helped us to promote the stories we were publishing as we were getting started with being a publication.
After publishing any piece, our journalists are able to post on ourInstagram, @wahawkinsider. We have a shared template for students to use so that each post is cohesive with the theme of our account.
When it comes to posting on social media, especially Instagram, we have noticed that the promoted pieces are more likely to be viewed over pieces that are not promoted. Followers will also share the posts to their stories which boosts our interaction even more.
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On today’s episode of Wahawk Sports Corner, host Seayea Joseph had the privilege to talk with Warriors Hockey athletes Micah Schwickerath, Cayden Kutz, and Jack Rikkers. They talked about their hockey journey, a 1-1 start to their season, and much more.
-To listen to the episode, click the link in bio or visit wahawkinsider.com
-Reporting by Seayea Joseph
Senior Talan Nelson, typically seen in his maroon and white overalls, has earned a permanent front row spot at all the Wahawk athletic events. As a student section leader, Nelson brings energy to the crowd and gets the students in the stands on their feet. Nelson missed only one football game, and was seen at nearly every volleyball match this season. Recently Nelson has been seen with more than just school spirit. In the past few months, a camera has hung from his neck alongside his overalls.
-To read more, click the link in bio or visit wahawkinsider.com
-Reporting by Ali Parkhurst
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Student Voices
To keep our publications relevant, we aim to keep students interested. To do this, we spend a lot of time figuring out what peaks the interest of students the most.
Over time, I have noticed patterns in our social media interaction of which posts were being liked and shared the most. The biggest thing I have learned, is that students want to see themselves and their friends in these posts. Students are more likely to like and share a post if it contains someone they know and like.
Post Contains Multiple People/Pictures
Post Contains One Person/ One Photo
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Anyone who views our website has the opportunity for their opinion to be heard by everyone on staff. While viewing a majority of our pieces, a sidebar is present to gather information on what categories our viewers enjoy reading. There is also a section on our website that allows for anyone to suggest a story for us to write. This keeps us up to date on what is piquing the interest of students and what we can do to stay on top of news and trends.
By being able to suggest a story or share their interests, all of our viewers are given a voice and their opinions are heard throughout the publication.
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We use our Instagram to connect with students but also open up our range for features. For certain topics that are harder to narrow down features, things that are not clubs, sports or classes, we use Instagram to reach a large group of students who can share their experiences with us. Using this resource to reach students pulls interest towards our publications.
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Promoting the Yearbook
My freshman year, before I was on the yearbook staff, 197 yearbooks were sold. In a school of over 1800, this is under 11% of the student body. My sophomore year, as we promoted the book more, we were able to bump our sales up to 253 books which was something we were so proud of.
My junior year, we worked even harder to promote the book and get students to buy a copy of their own. We achieved this with various social media posts on Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok as well as emails and text messages regularly sent to students and parents. In March, we did a drawing for a $50 Visa gift card which was nearly equal to the cost of a yearbook at our highest price ($55 after December 31 price increase.) All students who had purchased a book before March 9 were entered. Between March 3, when the email about the gift card was sent out, and March 9, we had 31 additional sales.
The biggest pattern I saw as we used these strategies was that West High students are last minute shoppers. My junior year, when we said that the price of the yearbook would increase after December 31, we had sold only 27 books before the increase. By the time students were buying the books at full price they wished they had bought them before, which encouraged them to do so the following year. My senior year, we had a price increase ($50-$55) on November 10. Before the increase, we had sold 205 books which passed the total sales from the 2020-21 school year.
To sell the yearbook, we use many different tactics to encourage students and parents to buy a book. From text messages, to 'parking tickets' and booths at conferences, we have tried numerous ways to increase our sales.
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To sell the yearbook, we use many different tactics to encourage students and parents to buy a book. From text messages, to 'parking tickets' and booths at conferences, we have tried numerous ways to increase our sales.
Each year, we have a table at conferences with a computer that allows parents to purchase a book on the spot, as well as former books for parents and students to see. This booth, while it does not double our sales, has proven to increase sales through parental interest rather than student interest.
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To try something new this year, we put fake parking tickets on cars at a football game. The parking tickets, while they were fun to make, did not go as well as we had hoped. Following the football game, we received a lot of backlash from the student body who did not appreciate the scare.
After we accepted the defeat, we changed the way we went about marketing our book. One of the changes we made was deciding to make the promotions more clear that they were for yearbook.
Analytics
Nothing brings you down more than to work endlessly on an article or post just for no one to look at it. However, once you learn the patterns behind what students enjoy reading or watching, it becomes easy to play into these interests to grow your analytics. We try to keep our stories close to us, writing about the big events at West High or the amazing accomplishments our students are having.
We use the SNO analytics to see what stories do well with students, and try to mimic these in one way or another to keep students engaged with our page. We compare which articles are successful and which do not do as well on our site.
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Staff & Student Engagement
Getting the Wahawk Insider platform out to students was one of the hardest parts of creating the program. With the programs being so connected to the English department, English teachers were a large part in encouraging students to use Wahawk Insider as a resource.
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Some teachers use Wahawk Insider as part of an assignment for class, other teachers have the website bookmarked in their Google Classrooms. Not only are we getting our name out there, but this encourages students to interact with us on a daily basis.
The website for West High also has Wahawk Insider bookmarked on the home page, which allows for students and parents to have access to the website easily.
On top of this, one of the most rewarding feelings is to hear "I have Wahawk Insider bookmarked on my Chromebook!"
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Community Engagement
When creating publications, the people within the walls of our school cannot be our only focus. While students and staff are a priority for our content and engagement, interacting with the community is just as important to building programs, especially programs that rely on the help from the members of the community.
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While we love to see engagement with students and faculty, sometimes it means a little bit more to feel appreciated and seen by those outside of our Wahawk home. To see comments from those outside of West High pushes us to continue to write articles that are engaging adults, students at other schools and people around our community.
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In recent years, we have sold yearbook ads to companies around the community to not only help cover the cost of the yearbooks, but to grow our reach within the Cedar Valley. Selling ads to businesses also helped teach students leadership, responsibility, and the financial aspect of running publications..
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