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Social Media Content
Over the past year, our Instagram presence has grown significantly, going from under 700 followers to 941 followers. This growth is in part due to the fact that we now post more consistently. In the past, we posted about once a week, but now we post at least four or five times a week. In addition, due to several social media guidelines presented by our journalism advisor, the quality of our posts has improved drastically. Now, there are human interest images featuring faces, action shots and relevant school events.
In addition, we've instituted a Social Media Calendar to ensure that at least one post goes up on our social media handles, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, each day. This change has been successful, likely the main reason why our presence on Instagram has increased since last year.
Here are my favorite social media contributions. Because Snapchat is used by most of our staff writers, Twitter receives the least coverage. As such, I mostly direct my social media contributions to either Twitter or Instagram.
Promotion
Individual promotion: As Features editor last year, I spearheaded all the promoting activities, reminding my section when and how to use social media to promote their stories. This type of promotion occurs primarily on Facebook, and every member in the section includes a link to his or her story and tags all other section members. To gain more traction, each member also likes the other writers' posts and usually comments as well. Here's an example of a promotion post that's showcasing a package on Free Speech. As a result of our promotion, the package received over 500 views while the usual package receives about 150 views.
El Estoque promotion: Now, as Managing Editor, not only do I do individual promotion on my personal social media but I also promote using El Estoque's Facebook, and if a story really deserves to be read, I use El Estoque's Twitter account to promote as well.
Writing for Publications Promotion: Furthermore, to address my school’s decline in enrollment — which will inevitably lead to classes being cut, one of which might be the introduction to journalism class that led me to join El Estoque in the first place — I’m leading the initiative to give a journalism pitch to neighboring middle schools (the biggest feeders into Monta Vista HS). So far, I’ve coordinated with the middle school’s English departments and prepared a short video with the rest of the Editorial Team explaining what Writing for Publications, the intro to journalism class, is and how it serves as a non-mandatory prerequisite to joining El Estoque. To me, El Estoque has become a second family, and the connections I’ve built with my co-reporters and co-editors are unmatchable. Through this initiative, I can only hope that incoming freshmen see the same value in journalism that I see and are inspired to join our publication.
El Estoque Promotion: In preparation for Monta Vista HS's Course Information Fair, the Editorial Team at El Estoque prepared an extensive plan to promote our publication and motivate students to fill out the staff and editor application. During the week of Feb. 10 to 14, each of the five sections of El Estoque - Features, News, Opinion, Arts and Entertainment, Sports - picked a day to promote El Estoque by either uploading an image on their Instagram or Snapchat stories (these images were created by the Editorial Team) or making a post on their personal Facebook and Instagram accounts. As a result of this extensive promotion, students' social media feeds were dominated with El Estoque-related posts, and some hopefuls had filled out the application two weeks ahead of the deadline - something that hadn't happened in years prior.
Focus group
Forging connections: To understand how our readers feel about El Estoque, the Editorial Team recently held a focus group. We chose 6 students from each grade and instructed them to look over our newest print issue and our social media accounts and consider El Estoque's strengths and weaknesses. We compiled their responses in a PowerPoint, which we then presented to both the print and multimedia class.
