Marketing and Audience Engagement
Whether it was through our print publications, our website or our social media, getting the work of our staff into the public eye was a crucial part of my role as Editor-in-Chief.
Distribution of Print Papers
After not putting out an issue of the print newspaper during online learning, our staff and school were eager to resume publication of the print issues.
​After finally receiving our first issue from the printing press, we made sure to get the word out.
Our first step was distribution to classrooms where everyone had the chance to grab a copy on their way to lunch. After that, we placed the extras all over the school in boxes like the one seen to the right.
We placed other loose copies in the library and commons areas and even handed some out during a debate tournament LHS hosted afterwards.
​As well as handing out physical copies, we also widely advertised the paper on our social media accounts. Both of our issues received hundreds of interactions on our social media accounts.
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Adapting to a printer closing
On Feb. 14, we got news that our printer was forever turning off its printing press. Due to an assortment of reasons, we had to reassess the future of The Budget’s print editions.
My co-editors and I discussed at length the direction we wanted to take the newspaper now that we had to reassess our situation. What we decided on is making changes to reach our community more effectively. There is no doubt that the last few years have made social media and web coverage more crucial while simultaneously decreasing the effectiveness of print news. But we weren't ready to shut down our print paper just yet. it offered us a way to access some people with less interest in our social media and website and allows us a unique way to display important journalism visually.
We improved the quality of our printing but decided to print fewer copies, while doing more to promote our digital products, including a pdf version of the newspaper, as well as boosting content to lhsbudget.com and our social media, @lhsbudget.
These last few years have been full of challenges, and this one was no different. Regardless of the format The Budget takes moving forward, we knew we needed to remain committed to doing in-depth reporting and telling the stories of the LHS community.
Relationship with college and professional media
University Daily Kansan
While on a visit to the journalism school at the University of Kansas, I met with the adviser for The University Daily Kansan, KU's student publication. We began talking and are now currently in the process of scheduling a meet up for our editors and their staff to work together and learn from each other.
Associated Press
After releasing my story about the devious licks trend, a reporter from the Associated Press decided to pick up the story and interviewed me about what I had seen. That interview was featured in the AP as well as a link to The Budget's original story online. That story ran in the Washington Post, The Guardian and many more, allowing wide exposure for our website. I was also independently contacted by reporters from New York Magazine and WIBW 13 News in Topeka, KS. The graph to the right shows the huge spike in website traffic following the attention.
Lawrence-Journal World
After students organized a sit-in on behalf of the gymnastics team, the Journal-World reached out about using some of our photos. In the end, we were able to get our reporting linked in the Journal-World story as well as be credited for photos and reporting done during the protest.
The Lawrence Times
After releasing our story about the LHS football team celebrating without masks, we reached out to some local news sources to show them the work we had done.
Connection with Lawrence Times
I wanted to help create connections and pipelines for staffers and editors of The Budget with local professional news outlets. I worked with the Lawrence Times to get important news out and also have just started doing internship work with them and helping to get other editors to hop on board as well.
Engaging our student body
After being online for almost a full school year, our ability to engage our student body with our publications and reporting dropped significantly.
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It was crucial as we returned to a more normal school year that we found new ways to reengage our student body.
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One way I chose to do this was by using student body group chats to promote reporting that is relevant to students.
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At the beginning of the year we also had an editors discussion about using social media to engage with students. I realized that of all of our platforms, social media was the one that garnered the most engagement from students.
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This social media effort involved both the promotion of our stories and content but also social media exclusive content which kept engagement with our social media pages high.
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Football state semifinals social media package
