Social media serves as a way to connect to the school community and tell stories in a different format. Not every photo or story finds its way into the yearbook, so we utilize our social media to make up for those gaps.
The editors-in-chief for the past two years controlled our social media presence. They made Instagram and Facebook photo dumps, but there were no journalistic aspects to the posts.
2022-2023 posts
2023-2024 posts
So, this year, my team was intentional about being more active on social media.
2024-2025 posts
This post introduced this year’s editors to the school. Our staff felt that it is was a fun way to be transparent and connect to our peers.
New style
After this post, I was inspired to create a style for our posts and make them more journalistic. My goal was to create an aesthetically pleasing and informative format to increase engagement, encourage the sale of the yearbook, and tell those smaller stories that get lost in the year.
First post
I tried out this new style, based on this year’s visual theme, with a story about SkillsUSA regionals. I figured it would be best to test this format with a story in which I am familiar.
Feedback
I made a poll on the Prowler Instagram page asking viewers if they thought the style was “cute and informative” or “needs work.” I received 17 responses, 100% said they felt it was the former. I took this as a go-ahead to apply it to more stories and continue to increase community engagement.
Newest Prowler Posts
Softball
basketball
Since my school does not publish a spring supplement, I plan to continue to utilize social media to share stories from the year after the yearbook deadline. An entire quarter is left out of the yearbook each year, so this new format will allow the student body’s successes in the fourth quarter to be celebrated in some way.