Marketing
Our school conducts an elective fair every November after school for incoming freshmen. We have noticed that this event is an excellent opportunity to spark students' interest in journalism early in their high school journey. We set up a board, and have previous awards on showcase, as well as papers to pass out. This helps us to promote our publication, and we have found this method to be very effective.
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Another effective marketing technique we have utilized was to create flyers. The flyer shown was created during the 2022-2023 school year and distributed at our school's elective fair. My adviser tasked me with creating an updated elective flyer. This is what I came up with.
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Fundraising
The original design I came up with. It ended up not looking good on a shirt. However, I wanted to maintain the pennant idea.
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The revised design. Keeping the idea of the pennant, I decided to go with a simpler font as well as a Knight, our school mascot. I believe this made this design look much cleaner.
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The revised design on the shirt. We ended up selling T-shirts for $25, sweatshirts for $35, and hoodies for $40.
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Knight Writers is constantly in debt. To solve this problem, my adviser and I decided to design shirts that students at Robinson can purchase to raise money for our publication. Having funding is essential in growing our publication.
Donations
This year, my adviser and I donated to make use of SNO Donate. We made it an assignment for staffers to send our donation page to at least five people they knew. Through our SNO Donation button, we are able to raise $1210 for our publication in the span of a month.
Audience Engagement
Polls
Instagram polls are among the various methods we use to incorporate student opinions into our publication. It is crucial not only for a journalist to express their views but also for the student population to take an interest in them. The poll outcomes are always added to the story, regardless of whether it is published online or in print. Designed by Cecilia Cheng
Google Forms
Another method students can input their voice into Knight Writers would be to contact us for coverage or become a contributor. On our website, there is a spot where individuals can access two Google Forms: one to request to be a contributor and one to request coverage of an event. Not to mention, in our printed issues, there will be a QR code students can scan to access the send contributor form (as seen in the Back-to-School issue). Google Forms are an easy and efficient method to gather information.
Instagram Engagement
Instagram is one of the best social media platforms we utilize in order to promote stories that have been published. As shown, our content often reach individuals that aren't familiar with our publication. Furthermore, Instagram allows students to repost articles on their stories, therefore creating more engagement for our publication.
Audience Engagement Online
SNO analytics of knightwriters.org from Aug. 10, 2023 to Jan. 31, 2024
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Our website host, SNO, provides us analytics where we can view the performance of our website. Although my main job is not to manage our online publication, it is still my responsibility as a managing editor to make sure our website is performing to the best of its ability. On the days when we advertise our stories on platforms such as Instagram, we can visually see a peak in the number of views.
I believe in order for individuals to keep accessing our site and reading our stories, we need to make our content relevant to the student body as well as promote more often. |