Audience Engagement
Multimedia storytelling
Explainer/slider posts
For information-packed or visual heavy stories, sometimes a single-slide grid post on Instagram isn't enough. Seamless or multi-part sliders provide readers with snippets of a story without giving away the entire narrative, ultimately increasing clicks and driving readership to the digital story.
Vertical and horizontal video editing
TikTok and Instagram reels have certainly ushered in the renaissance of vertical video. Feature stories, listicles and food reviews lend themselves to video production, whether in traditional landscape or fitted to smartphone screens.
Incorporating audio into social posts
In an ever-growing digital world where social media engagement drives clicks, listens and views of news content, radio outlets find themselves in an unique position. When the majority of your content is audio-based, how do you produce visually compelling content? To maximize a story from NPR's Midwest Newsroom, I included a slide of dynamic captioning and audio within a longer slider post.
Cross-platform reach
Threads strategy for The Star
Amid the divisive rebranding of Twitter, publications continue to debate the merits of staying on X versus pursuing another corporation's Twitter alternative. Threads, by Meta, was launched in the summer of 2023. As an intern on The Star's audience team, I created templates for visual posts on Threads, observed competing outlets' strategies and tracked subsequent successes. My data compilation, as seen to the left, was used as a model by other McClatchy newspapers launching their presence on Threads.
Newsletter writing for The Star
For select demographics of news consumers, newsletters garner significant engagement and conversions. A pithy subject line can be the difference between a click or the message being sent directly to the trash.
Weekly talk series for The Star
While it seems a stretch to categorize journalists as influencers, when it comes to TikTok, the divide is not as wide as we might think. Traditional stand-ups for broadcast news packages can be easily converted into a more casual format for vertical videos. TikTok continues to make news stories more accessible for audiences and engage demographics that are perhaps underrepresented within readerships. In an effort to increase The Star's Gen Z readership, my fellow intern and I created a weekly talk series on TikTok breaking down an article from the newspaper.
Accessibility and community
Engaging underrepresented communities with Latino News Network
As a Spanish-speaker and a second-generation immigrant, I have always sought to engage communities that have been historically underrepresented within news. Often, it takes time to establish trust with BIPOC and immigrant communities who have been misrepresented and stereotyped by mainstream media. There is no specific formula for creating relationships with any group of people, regardless of their identities.
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For me, it has been easier to build trust with Latino communities within the Midwest, as I am more familiar with the intricacies of local demographics, sociopolitical factors, etc. Ultimately, whenever I begin a new position, I always identify community leaders to connect with and ask them of people, issues, stories they want to see covered by the media. Generally, if I take time to meet them where they are at and communicate my intentions, they are willing to speak with me.
Event-planning with NPR's Midwest Newsroom
Throughout my short career, I have had the privilege to help various publications plan community engagement events. Whether it be a focus group, story series or informational session, soliciting feedback from readers and non-readers is essential to growing an outlet's reach. As a part of the Midwest Newsroom, I identified stakeholders, neighborhood leaders and relevant nonprofits to invite to a housing justice focus group set to take place in my home city of Omaha.
