Social Media
Introduction
Every post I create has the same intention: to cover as many students as physically possible. Some students are never covered by Ladue Publications' print publications because the stories don't make sense within our four-week production cycle. Using the blacklist and social media, however, I'm able to highlight the activities and interests of every single student, ensuring that each feel seen and represented by their student publication. The efforts worked — in the first five months of my serving as a social media content creator, our audience engagement boosted by 254 percent.
@ladue.publications Revamp
Style Guide
To facilitate the creation of a more cohesive Instagram page, I developed our first-ever social media style guide with the 2023-24 social media editor during my junior year. This emphasized recurring graphics and motifs, such as a star that symbolized a "Panorama" post or ID's logo to symbolize an "ID" post, to make our content easily viewable to audience members.
@ladue.id & @ladue.melodrama
As a news site that creates three print publications (Panorama Newsmagazine, ID Magazine, Melodrama Literary Magazine), creating one Instagram profile was very difficult. The feeds didn't look cohesive — nor should they have, because each publication has its own theme. So, I launched two Instagram accounts during my junior year: @ladue.id & @ladue.melodrama. Through cross-posting between Instagram accounts, I was able to reach the same number of audience members but create separate hubs for each publication.
In the halls, ID is easily recognizable due to its black-and-white design and vibrant photos. When working on ID posts with 2023-24's social media editor and 2024-25's website editors in chief, we attempted to showcase the same elements on social media, using simplistic design and descriptive quotes to share the story with viewers.
Recurring Content
Breaking News
As part of the design for "Dousing the Flame," a story I wrote in April 2024, I worked with our photo editor in chief and in-depth team to set up a photoshoot of a globe burning — literally. Because it was an event that was held on school grounds and drew student interest, I put the following images onto our social media page.
In September, Ladue High School closed due to a bomb threat. At 6:12 a.m., when we were informed of the incident, I created a post that encapsulated the situation's severity as our standard out-of-school posts — often used for snow days — were not appropriate for the situation.
April 1, Ladue High School administration discovered a bee hive — with thousands of bees — on the school's property. They enlisted the AP History teacher, a beekeeper, to remove the hive. The same day, I coordinated photography and captions to post student and staff reactions.
Photo of the Week
This year, I implemented weekly "Photo of the Week" posts. I hoped for it to be a method of covering a larger variety of our student body, specifically in class and club coverage. It worked — the posts saw high engagement because students enjoyed viewing themselves in the activities they were passionate about.
Photo Galleries
To further class and club coverage, I worked to post simple photo galleries of day-to-day activities. Because they didn't require a full story, these posts were significantly easier than expected, and enjoyed a large number of Instagram "reposts" with students excited to see their work celebrated.
Reviews
As the website editor in chief, I used Instagram stories as a platform for reviews. This short-form content was in a place viewers often clicked through, increasing its visibility. The example above is reviews different seasons of Fortnite, a popular video game, as a new version had been released just weeks prior. Other reviews included Christmas songs and computer games.
Promotion
Panorama Newsmagazine
When choosing stories to promote, I think of content that contains high-quality pictures and graphics. Stories are also chosen based on their relevance to the larger student body; topics that pertain to more individuals are more likely to be posted. See below for an example of promotion for the Panorama March Money Issue, as well as the Panorama Senior Issue, which I developed in collaboration with the 2023-24 social media editor.
laduepublications.com
To highlight the work my staff members were creating for the website, I created weekly "new web stories" posts. These traditionally contained news or arts & entertainment pieces, as that is the content viewers had engaged with most often.
Analytics
For a while, I produced posts every Monday that detailed the week's sports games. However, these posts saw very little engagement and didn't seem to serve the community. As website editor in chief, I elected to eliminate these posts in favor of actually covering the games and events listed. The change boosted engagement, and encouraged concrete reporting within the Ladue Publications newsroom.