An introduction to THE EMERY
The Huron Emery is a student-run publication based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The staff is comprised of students from Ann Arbor Huron High School. Most newspaper students are in the newspaper class which allows them time during school to write, design, and edit. This is the fifth year of the Emery running under adviser Sara-Beth Badalamente. This year The Huron Emery released 6 issues from September to June.
An Introduction to Mishal Charania
Mishal Charania is a rising senior at Huron High School. During her junior year she was the online editor-in-chief for The Huron Emery. Through her role she revolutionized the Emery's online coverage and led them to winning an online Spartan award. She also managed the Emery's Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook during her time as online editor-in-chief. In her senior year she plans to be the managing editor for the Emery and the editor-in-chief of Huron's yearbook. The work featured in our marketing plan is the result of Mishal's organization and her commitment to the Emery's online growth.
What the Huron Emery online platform looked like before we developed a marketing plan
Our marketing plan - Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
Before coming up with a plan for the upcoming school year, we considered why increasing our social media presence was necessary. Even though the Emery has won multiple awards and is considered an up and coming newspaper, the students at Huron didn't seem to care. Very few students read the Emery. To connect with students we knew we had to change our approach to social media. Before the 2019-2020 school year the social medias and website were seen as afterthoughts. By adding editor roles to focus specifically on online presence, we were able to not only add new and interesting content but we also connected more students to the content we were already creating. The initial goal set by Mishal at the beginning of the year was 600 Instagram followers, 150 Twitter followers and 400 Facebook followers. To reach this goal we paid close attention to our analytics on all of our social media apps (Facebook doesn't offer us analytics). By looking at the ratio of how many people interacted with our work to how many people saw it we were able to see what made it onto timelines and what our audience wanted.
We quickly realized that one of the reasons that we weren't gaining traction on our social medias was because the content just wasn't interesting to our viewers. Rather than look at plants or infographics, the students wanted to see other students. By highlighting members of our student body, people were intrigued by seeing their friends and peers on a public platform. Many students who were highlighted also published our posts on their personal stories, increasing the range of people that see our content.
Featuring students turned out to be one of the things the Emery does best. Within a few weeks of highlighting students, our follower count and likes were increasing. This increase could be seen throughout all of our platforms but most noticeably Instagram. The picture to the left is our first complete Humans of Huron attempt. The picture to the right is our most-liked Instagram post. By implementing funny content alongside our weekly updates we were able to truly connect with the audience.
Before we post, especially when we are posting breaking news or informational posts, our content is checked by multiple people. This makes sure that our content is formatted clearly, effectively, and provides correct information. Fact checking was especially important when we were making posts related to COVID-19, we often had to make new posts to update our previous information and we made that clear to our audience.
The impact of community engagement
Throughout the year, The Huron Emery online platform continued to grow but there were many stalemate points. To combat this, not only did we try to introduce new and interesting content, but we also encouraged all of our staff to promote on their personal social medias. In the picture to the right are examples of two of the Emery's staff writers Manit and Ridhima promoting Emery Instagram content on their personal stories. As our staff has a diverse range of interests, our content reached students from other schools and other parts of the country.
As information about the school closure was coming out from our school district, the Emery's Instagram and Twitter was the main place of information for students. This actually led students from other publications in our school district to promote and share our content. While this wasn't the content that we had expected to be focusing on, this went back to our initial mission of providing content to our audience that they cared about. This type of community engagement hadn't been expected because of how small our platforms were at the beginning. However, we have already begun to incorporate this into our plans to expand for next year.
Our results
As of June 23, the Huron Emery has 587 Instagram followers, 452 friends on Facebook, and 148 Twitter followers. Altogether this is a following of 1,187, resulting in an increase of approximately 987 followers during the 2019-2020 school year. While we haven't met our Instagram and Twitter follower goals, we came pretty close. Some goals for next year include broadening our content reach by expanding to also include an Emery Snapchat and TikTok account and also focusing on social media-exclusive stories.
Check out our social medias
Credits:
Created with an image by Ren Ran - "untitled image"