LEADERSHIP
Editing
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At Carlmont, incoming sophomores have the choice to take Media Arts, an alternative English class that serves as a prerequisite to the Journalism pathway. During the second semester of each school year, students enrolled in the class can choose to explore another aspect of journalism, like social media marketing. This year, the marketing team received 12 new producers, many of whom had little to no prior experience creating promotional social media posts.
In collaboration with my editor-in-chief, we held a meeting with all the new producers to familiarize them with the templates used to make each post and clearly outline the work required for each beat type (Instagram, X/Bluesky, Facebook, and Games). By holding this informational meeting, presenting the below slides, we created a foundation for what would be expected of students and cleared up any confusion to ensure that all students felt confident and comfortable beginning the beat cycle, and that posts would continue to be of high quality.
Despite our efforts, there will always be some students who struggle. As a sophomore, I remember it being daunting to text my upperclassman editor and ask for help. However, meeting in person with my editor helped me put a face to the once-intimidating voice behind the screen and allowed me to get answers to questions I had been previously scared to ask via text. Based on personal experience, I decided to meet in person with struggling producers so I could visually demonstrate how to do things on their laptop and to clearly explain things verbally rather than texting them a long and confusing paragraph.
The above screenshot is of feedback I left on one of my producers' first rubrics. After having a meeting with this student, I saw improvements in communication, quality of work, and in the grades they received each of the following beat cycles; after receiving a 38/50 on their first beat, they received a 46/50 on their sixth and final beat. By talking to them in person, I was able to build trust by establishing myself as a resource willing to provide them with the guidance and support they need to succeed.
As a marketing editor I have become very familiar with how to analyze and understand social media analytics. While the marketing team is responsible for promoting published content, students are heavily encouraged to create their own journalism social media accounts to promote themselves, however, I noticed that many students don't utilize these accounts. To encourage other students to use social media to publicize their work I created a presentation on how to utilize analytics to effectively promote ones's work.