About
Maddy is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Social Media for her school's journalism program.
What is it?
The newsmagazine's purpose is to tell the stories of events that have already occurred, as well as to provide context for larger, more complex issues. Carlmont journalism utilizes its online platforms, whether it be social media or our online publication, to report on news as it happens.
With the advent of COVID-19, we were unable to deliver our Issue VII and Issue VIII of the Highlander through our usual way, which involves personally delivering copies of the newsmagazine to all classrooms during the school day.
As a result, we chose to combine these two final issues into one year-end, double-issue, a package that has never been done before.
Newsmagazine
Promotional Package
What did I do?
Because of COVID-19, we also had to invent a new way to deliver the newsmagazine to all Carlmont students while adhering to quarantine guidelines.
This new way of publishing and distributing the Highlander required donations, and to raise awareness of the final double-issue, I put together a promotional package.
I utilized our social media platforms to post teasers for the upcoming release of the newsmagazine, as well as implement advertising techniques asking for donations to help offset the distribution cost.
I regularly posted notices to all our social media accounts explaining the financial situation to our followers. I also included a link for people to donate to if they were able and willing to support us. As a result, donations to our journalism program increased drastically.
On our Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook stories, I posted teaser graphics weekly to build awareness for the upcoming delivery.
I interviewed the two Highlander Editors-in-Chief and posted their statements on the final issue to all 4 of our social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat).
Emma Romanowsky comments on what she's most excited for in the final issue. Nisha Marino comments on how the process of creating the double issue was affected due to COVID-19.
Results
We reached and surpassed our donation goal by raising over $6000 from our community in order to fund the publishing of our final issue.
As a result, we will be able to send a copy of the issue to every Carlmont student's household and use the donations we garnered for future endeavors to strengthen our journalism program.
In addition, we saw an increase in engagement with our social media platforms as well as more interest in the Highlander.
Podcast Marketing
To increase awareness about the LGBTQ+ community, I started a social media marketing campaign for the podcast I co-founded, Queer Time Podcast. Through posts and graphics, I increased our listeners and helped educate those outside of the community on topics and current events spanning the LGBTQ+ community. This directly led to recognition of both our podcast and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, as well as the promotion of understanding between groups.
I ran all four of our social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat.
For every podcast episode, I updated our followers via posts and graphics tailored to the specific topic of the new episode. For example, our "Season 2 Episode 3: Who am I?" episode focused on labeling and the nuances of sexuality, and I used this theme of confusion and the struggle to figure out one's sexuality to create an eye-catching post that would connect to our listeners.
Press Releases
In order to update our Carlmont community on the success of our journalism program, I sent out press releases to local politicians, reporters, and Carlmont staff. This ultimately resulted in greater engagement with our electronic news website and attracted more viewers.
To the right is a press release detailing the Carlmont students admitted into the NSPA Journalism Honor Roll, and below is a press release covering the Online Pacemaker awarded to Scot Scoop.
Analytics
I created a presentation covering all of our social media analytics from the beginning of the school year until now (August 2019 - May 2020). This was designed to raise awareness about our social media campaign as well as track our success over several months. Using data from three platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I put together graphs and analyzed the data to pull conclusions about the effectiveness of our campaigning in order to better plan for future campaigns.