Social Media

The Spartan Shield is extremely active on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, posting a minimum of once a day for our readers to engage with our work on a frequent basis. However, our social media accounts have long focused on the online Spartan Shield, due to its quicker turn-around. However, this year, I sought to increase the Print Spartan Shield's presence on social media, training our Social Media Manager to create engaging and thoughtful posts that give viewers a look into the day-to-day doings of the staff and brought more attention to our editions' releases. 
Advertising articles within the magazine itself is a new marketing strategy we have implemented this year to boost pick-ups and overall engagement. We also post when each new edition comes out, informing both students and subscribers when they can pick up/receive their monthly magazine! 

Other Platforms 

We've found that our high school readership engages with us most through platforms like Instagram and TikTok, so this year, we have dedicated class time once a month to creating content for our TikTok account. 

Whether inviting viewers to meet our staff through fun TikToks or celebrating our accomplishments for our readers to see online, our social media accounts have become a reflection of our hard work at The Spartan Shield in the attention they have gained. 

Engagement 

The Spartan Shield is not just any newspaper: it is Pleasant Valley High School's one and only student publication. So naturally, we have a responsibility to make our student peers the center of our work. The print Spartan Shield has numerous recurring features in our monthly editions that engage our student body and promote our online newspaper as well. 
NAILED IT FAILED IT

Started by a group of seniors in 2023, NAILED IT FAILED IT is a miniseries that features interviews, challenges and other lighthearted content purely for entertainment. After this series grew popular within our school, my co-editor and I knew we wanted to include snippets of the videos in our monthly editions. 

We created design elements that feature captures of the videos and a QR code to find the video on our online magazine, boosting both online and print engagement as students eagerly anticipated the new videos each month. 
Senior Spotlight 

The number of magazines picked up from the news rack, as well as the number of subscriptions we have, determine our success each edition. Because as journalists, we don't write for ourselves; we write for our school and community. Because of this, we prioritize engagement when planning out each edition of The Spartan Shield. Senior Spotlight is a well-known feature of The Spartan Shield, where seniors submit their (often silly) answers to a questionnaire that are then put into print. Senior Spotlight is a great way to boost student engagement with the Shield and incorporate some fun, lighthearted content into our monthly editions. 
​
Some other ways we have sought to increase the number of pick-ups each edition include:
​
  • Placing news racks in local businesses, especially those that advertise with The Spartan Shield, to give community members the chance to read our monthly editions 
  • Meeting with local elementary schools and Girl Scout troops to talk about The Spartan Shield and the importance of journalism 
  • Being active on social media by sharing sneak-peeks of editions before they come out
  • Choosing a Photo of the Month that becomes the back cover of each edition 
  • Creating a photo album of the month that is linked via a QR code on the back cover of each edition, prompting students to pick up an edition to see if they are featured 

Web

While the print Spartan Shield holds true to the classic form of newspaper journalism, we at The Spartan Shield know that in the digital age, having an online presence is a necessity. However, for years, the online and print Spartan Shields were two separate entities, with little overlap. But for members of our community who could not get ahold of a print magazine, I thought it would be useful to put an interactive PDF of our monthly editions on The Spartan Shield site to give readers the opportunity to digitally flip through the magazine. These PDFs can be found here.