Marketing & advertisement
ONLINE advertisement
On our Westside Wired website, we offer links to our other social media accounts such as Facebook, X, Instagram and Youtube. Having easy access to these accounts allows readers of our Online News to see more of our content with the simple click of a button. We have tabs for all of our publications and offer information about each one. Under the 'Warrior TV' tab, readers can view the latest posts from our Broadcast publication. These videos can also be found on YouTube. We have online copies of our News Magazine - The Lance available at the release of each new issues. Allowing access to the Lance online helps reach others in our community who cannot get their hands on a physical copy. Under the 'Shield' tab, viewers can find important information about purchasing their books, sending in senior photos and more!
selling the book - spreading the word
With a spring delivery, we start right way with advertising the Yearbook. Our school sends out a weekly newsletter with important information regarding the school. At the end of this newsletter as well as on our school's website, we have a reminder for parents to purchase a book with instructions for how to purchase and pricing information. We also make frequent Instagram posts regarding information related to sales. We also hang posters around the school with fun phrases like, "Why did the chicken cross the road? Who cares. Buy a yearbook". Posters around the school, alongside reminders online, help spread the word about making purchases.
November 22, 2024 Warrior Bulletin
Graphic created to encourage parents and students to purchase a senior ad and where to buy one.
Graphic created to encourage parents and students to purchase a yearbook and where to buy one.
Instagram graphic created to encourage sales of the 2024/2025 yearbook.
selling the book - pricing
The books start off at $65 and increase to $75 at the beginning of November. We make sure people know that there will be a price increase in hopes to encourage them to make the purchase early in the year. When people miss the deadline to order and still wish to buy a book, we work with our publisher to see how many extras we will receive and are then able to converse with the customer. Some students try and purchase books from the previous year and in those cases, we charge $50 to those customers.
Senior Ads: We offer 4 sizes of senior ads: 1/8 page, 1/4 page, 1/2 page, and full page.
Each of the ads has a corresponding price and it is another great way for us to earn money. In our Lance Newspaper and WTV Broadcasts, we have ads for businesses in the community.
distribution
When it comes time to distribute the books, we make sure to post on social media on top of reading reminders during the morning announcements, adding it to the school website, sending student and parent emails, and hanging posters around the school. We hold class in the Warrior Television Room so we can open the double doors and have students come up during their open mods. After about two weeks, we reach out to those who have not picked up their book and offer them final times to come in. We also like to send emails reminding parents because we find that students do not always know if they ordered a book or not.
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
ENGAGING A BROADER AUDIENCE
We often take the time to look at our analytics on both the Wired and Shield accounts. Doing so, we are able to see what our views seem to gravitate towards in terms of content. If we see a reel is doing really well in comparison to a regular post, we may try to incorporate reels into our daily posts. We also notice that the majority of our viewers are aged 18-24, closely followed by 13-17 which is expected. However, we would like to cater towards older audiences as well, such as alumni, parents and school staff. A very noticeable statistic is that more than 3/4 of our audience is women. We make it a goal to have our content be relatable to all and in order to fix this imbalance, we research trends across demographics to help reach all groups.
Keeping up with the trends
Knowing the majority of people following our accounts are high school students we try to do what high schoolers do best: be trendy. Using our personal experience of seeing videos online paired with following other school journalism accounts online, we are able to recreate and take part in numerous trends on both Instagram and Tik Tok. While our videos may be purely for entertainment purposes, people see our videos and decide to follow or look further at our accounts. This recognition helps bring attention to our accounts and allows people to see the important information we share.
Update regarding the Tik Tok ban: I no longer have access to the account and we have converted our video content to Instagram Reels. We found that, like many of teens across America, Westside students have started using Instagram Reels as a replacement for the short form content they once found on Tik Tok.
reaching school wide
With over 2,000 students and 240 staff members, Westside is full of unique voices, all of which deserve a place to be heard. With this in mind, we often try to reach out to as many people as possible to gain perspectives from all over the school. No two stories are alike and we want to give a platform to every one of them. For us, the easiest way to do that is to send Google Forms out in mass email format. We create the form, send it to a dean who then sends it to our super-intendent for review. If he requests changes, we work with him to make those edits. Our dean then emails the form out school wide or grade wide depending on the context of the story.
An example of the mass emails we have sent is the form for our 2024 Election Spread. Covering the Election was a risky choice. Knowing our department has been criticize on covering controversial topics before, we wanted to make sure we had input from ALL sides. We sent this form to the entirety of the senior class (529 students) and only had about 90 responses. Although the percentage of recipients was small in comparison to the class as a whole, it still allowed us to get a general idea of the senior classes involvement in the 2024 Election.
Form sent to entire Senior Class regarding the 2024 Election.
After sending the form to the administrator, this is the email that students receive.
utilizing SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE with the school
Social Media has become a space for community outreach and has become a key part of out Journalism Program. We know many students aren't checking their email daily or listening to the announcements every morning. Even if they are checking their emails, the chances they take the time to read and fill out all the forms we send are slim. However, we know a large portion of Westside Students use social media on the daily. It is far easier for students to 'click the link in our bio' or 'swipe up to take a poll' when it can be done on their phone. We often post our forms online to garner more responses. Our Instagram Stories have provided a space for us to get quick and easy information from a large audience.
Instagram Story post encouraging students to fill out a Google Form about Pickle-Ball.
Instagram Story post asking students to vote on their opinions on Mullets making a comeback.
Responses from students about their favorite spirit week themes.
