Audience Engagement
Mission Statement: The goal of The Michigan Daily’s Audience Engagement section is to promote and amplify the content of The Daily by drafting informative posts, crafting engaging campaigns across platforms, writing and disseminating newsletters and hosting live and virtual events that connect The Daily to its readers, wherever they may be.
Organizational Chart:
Note that Assistant Editors are known as Audience Coordinators as of April 2023
Day-to-Day:
The Day to Day and Instagram Senior Editor(s) will be responsible for designating, scheduling and editing the content for each day of The Daily’s publication. The Managing Editors will also assist on days with lots of content.
- Selecting content: The Managing Editor(s) is responsible for bringing the following day's content to the attention of Senior Editors. The ME will attend Story Meeting with the other Managing Editors at 6:15 p.m. After Story Meeting, the Managing Editor will meet with Senior Editors to discuss what will be posted the next day. Based on conversations with the other Managing Editors, the “push for social” section of the Story List (a shared Google Doc with all scheduled content) and the other AE SEs, the Managing Editor will mark the stories going out on the internal Audience Engagement Captions Doc. They should also use Story Meeting to raise any concerns, discuss ongoing or planned Special Projects, and solicit feedback from the other Managing Editors and EIC.
- Planning: The Day to Day Senior Editors and Instagram Senior Editors should organize the following days' content on the Captions Doc and delineate whether each post will go out on Twitter/Facebook, Instagram Post or Story based on relevance, targeted audience and topic. They will then assign the AE to craft the captions.
- Review and Editing: The Managing Editor will be responsible for checking over each post before publication the following day and making necessary adjustments and edits. The Managing Editor is responsible for notifying the Copy Editors and the Digital Managing Editor to edit captions once the ME has made all edits.
- Target Audience:
- Both Facebook and Twitter have varying target audiences that should be kept in mind when content is scheduled and posted.
- Facebook: The Facebook is followed largely by older alumni, parents and townies. Any news content, especially content about small businesses does well on Facebook. Additionally sports content has gained traction on the page as well.
- Twitter: The Twitter is followed largely by recent alums, current students and more engaged members of the AA community. News content relating to University events does especially well on these pages. Additionally, Arts content and MiC content gains traction too.
- Section Formatting/Audience:
- News
- Meta descriptions are usually super good
- Don’t need to be clever, be straightforward
- Can use a twitter thread if there is a long story
- Images on Twitter do really well: use quote cards
- Opinion
- Opinion | TITLE
- Facebook is good for a hottake, not a harmful take
- Michigan in Color
- “Quote:” A reflection on ___________
- Does best on Twitter and IG
- Arts
- Tag artist/show/actor referenced in the article
- Doesn’t do well on Facebook
- Clever and quippy is good
- Statement
- Schedule articles throughout the week/weekend posts
- Managing Editors and Senior Editors must have post notifications turned on.
Instagram:
The Instagram, which became fully under the purview of the Audience Engagement section in August 2020, is managed by two Senior Editors and multiple assistant editors.
- Posts: The Senior Editors are responsible for maintaining the profile throughout the week with a goal of at least three posts per weekday.
- The Instagram team, under the guidance of the Managing Editors, designates articles as posts or stories on the caption document. Things to consider include: timeliness of the story, relevance to our student audience (our IG following is mostly students), compatibility of the story with visual elements (ie. does the story have a good photo/design), etc.
- Assistant Editors schedule posts using Meta Business Suite the night before. The Senior Editor then reviews these posts — both the multimedia and the caption — to ensure they are consistent with The Daily’s style guide. Managing Editors, Copy Chiefs and the DME must also look over captions before they are posted.
- It is imperative that the IG editor have a strong line of communication with the Photo team as well as the Audience Engagement section’s designers. The IG editor should be empowered to request any and all multimedia content necessary to maintain the account. This should be done through one Google Drive folder where the Audience Engagement Photo liaison pulls photos from Photostaff’s server that have been requested by the Instagram Senior Editor.
- Stories: in addition to a maximum of three grid posts, the team should also aim to put out a series of 24-hour stories to the Instagram feed. These stories can feature shorter news articles or less time sensitive content. They can be created in Canva by the Instagram team and approved by the MEs before posting. Any sensitive Instagram stories should be approved by the DME, though most sensitive content will likely be featured on the grid instead.
- Score graphics and sports photography: The Instagram also offers an opportunity to feature sports photography through score graphics and 24-hour story posts. TheBlockM SEs, the Audience MEs, the MSEs, and the DME should be in constant communication about who will be responsible for updating and posting score graphics during a given game. After the game is over, vertical shots sent by the photostaff should be featured on the 24-hour instagram story with a Michigan Daily logo and a tag for the photographer who took the picture.
- Further information on graphics can be found in the graphics style guide.
@TheBlockM:
As of Fall 2020, the Audience Engagement section will oversee and run The Daily’s sports Twitter account, @TheBlockM. There will be one Audience Engagement Senior Editor whose sole responsibility is to oversee the account. There will be multiple Assistant Editors who draft tweets for day-to-day sports content (each being responsible for one night per week).
- Selecting Content: All sports content should be planned to be published. There are specific circumstances, such as when a special project is going out, where the Senior Editor can decide to trim the number.
- Planning: All content goes out on Twitter but be mindful of the timeliness of the article. Ie. previews should go out before games.
- Reviewing and Editing: The SE will be responsible for checking over each post before publication the following day and making necessary adjustments and edits. Any concerns should be brought to the Audience Engagement ME’s before publication.
- Availability for live games and breaking sports news: The SE should also be available to push content before, during, and after live games as well as breaking sports news. The MEs of the Sports section will text you this content directly. The Audience Engagement MEs and Sports MEs will also assist.
- Special Content Creation: The SE is responsible for planning and executing on short and long term campaigns in conjunction with Special Projects and Design. Examples here, here, here, and here.
- The “Today in Michigan History” Series has done particularly well.
Newsletter:
The newsletter subdivision of the Audience Engagement section is responsible for all things pertaining to The Michigan Daily’s newsletters. As of F21, the operating newsletters are the Weekly Roundup, which is sent to approximately ~60,000 — mostly students who were signed up from the student listserv — on Thursday mornings at ~11:00 a.m., The Daily Daily going out M-F, The University Insider (U Insider) going out Tuesday mornings targeted towards faculty, the A2Outlook going out Monday mornings targeted towards Ann Arbor residents and the Maynard Street Blitz going out Wednesday mornings targeted towards Michigan sports fans.
- Under its current form, the newsletter team has two Senior Editors from the News Section and multiple Assistant Editors.
- Weekly Roundup production process:
- On Tuesday, the newsletter AE and SE will compile an outline for the Roundup with stories to fill the features and Stay In The Know slots and content to go in the Twitter Talk, Video and Plug sections. They will share this outline with the Managing Editors and the Digital Managing Editor Tuesday night/Wednesday morning for them to review.
- The AE and SE will work to draft captions for the feature stories and the introduction. Upon completion, the language will go through edits in this order: 1. Managing Aud Eng Editors 2. Copy Chief 3. DME/EIC
- Note: Up until this point, all work is done on a shared Google Doc. See here for an example.
- After all edits are complete, the newsletter SE will transfer content over to Wordpress/MailChimp, which is the platform we use to deliver our newsletter.
- An expanding section: The Daily is planning to greatly expand the role of the newsletter in its production process. This includes creating new newsletters such as a daily newsletter, a faculty newsletter, an alumni newsletter and a section-specific (ie. sports) newsletter. Possible newsletter expansion details are outlined in section II of the summer committee report, which can be found here.
Newsletter Schedule
|
Sunday |
|
|
Monday |
|
|
Tuesday |
|
|
Wednesday |
|
|
Thursday |
|
Special Projects:
The Special Projects team, composed of multiple Assistant Editors and led by one Senior Editor, has a wide purview. They must work in collaboration with other sections of The Michigan Daily such as news, sports, design, and copy as well as with the internal subsections of the Audience Engagement team. The team’s mission and product varies depending on the news cycle, but there are three broad categories that Special Projects should look to fulfill.
- Building off the journalistic legwork of The Daily: The team should look to take articles already being published and look to expand upon them through infographics, live stories, etc. These can be in response to breaking news (another ex here), regular articles, or investigations (no examples but something we should be striving for!).
- Long-term campaigns unique to social media platforms: The team should look to build campaigns that are relevant to Daily readers but that might not be able to be executed by the traditional sections of The Daily.
- Short posts: Never underestimate the power of a well designed graphic that can be posted in an afternoon. Oftentimes the same post can be executed (with minor formatting changes) on both Twitter and Instagram.
- “No more parties in AA”
- A BONUS 4th bucket: “live events”: As the Special Projects team develops there are many possibilities for live interaction with the paper. These can come in the form of questions and answers on Instagram or when safe in-person events such as town-halls and debates.
- Have questions about voting?
Breaking News
- The Managing Editors are responsible for drafting captions and graphics for any breaking news content that arises during non-production hours. They should be in constant communication with the EIC, DME, MNEs, and Copy Chiefs as the articles is being written in order to minimize the time it takes to post.
- All breaking news content should be labeled and identified as breaking news, both in the caption and in the graphic
- During extremely sensitive times (ex: the MSU shooting in February 2023), the team may post updates without a published story, but they should be working alongside the EIC and MNEs before any content is made public.
- Make sure to push back any scheduled content after breaking news is posted
Advertisements
- The Business staff often sells advertisements for the Newsletters and occasionally for socials. The Managing Editors should make their Senior Editors of these advertisements based off the Business team’s advertisement tracker (usually a google sheet).
- Under no circumstances should advertisements be posted to the Instagram grid.
- The grid is a product itself and advertisements could significantly harm our engagement on the Instagram platform.
Job Descriptions:
Managing Editor: Two managing editors are the point people for everything pertaining to The Michigan Daily’s engagement with our audience. They are responsible for:
- The final review of captions for all platforms
- Serving as the liaison between the EIC, ME, DME and section managing editors as it pertains to publishing social media content
- Coordinating breaking news coverage
- Crafting targeted social media campaigns for notable stories in partnership with relevant parties (ie. reporters, DME, ME’s, EIC, photo, etc)
- Recruitment and onboarding of new members
- Running a weekly meeting with the whole team that serves to provide continual training and feedback
- Overseeing the Analytics sub-section
Senior Editor: Senior Editors serve as the conduit between the Assistant Editors and the Managing Editors. They are responsible for:
- Reviewing the drafted posts, making edits as they see fit based on the style guide.
- Compiling a weekly mistakes slideshow that is used to give feedback and provide training.
- Assist in running the weekly all staff meeting.
- Taking the lead on a subset of the Social teams’ work (Special projects, Instagram, daily captions, etc).
Audience Coordinators: Audience Coordinators are in charge of drafting captions for the standard day-to-day Daily and @thblockm articles.