Web and Social Media
Yoni Zacks shows RampageWired (Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, Overland Park, KS) Photo Editor Avital Mullokandova the design of The Spectrum's website.
Connecting our Website to Social Media
My first task as online editor was to find a way to connect our social media pages with our website. I found a section on the website that we never used previously called “Breaking News,” which was meant to link readers to shorter stories. I realized this was our perfect opportunity to connect the website to our Instagram. I taught the rest of the editorial staff how to do it, and thus, our latest website feature was born.
The Section at the top of the page links to The Spectrum's social media posts, which allows the staff to keep engaging readers, even though we aren't publishing full articles between cycles.
Web: Instagram Sports Stories
We never really used Instagram stories before I was Managing Editor, and I decided that we needed to bring them back. I realized this was an opportunity for us to cover sporting events live, and thus, our sports coverage Instagram stories were born. Whenever I went to a school sporting event as a journalist, I would report the score at the end of each playing period as well as who scored. These included hockey, lacrosse, and soccer.
Two postgame stories, the left is from girls' hockey sections and the right from the boys' hockey home opener.
Web: Maintaining Website
The Spectrum's digital staff list went from only including editors and former editors in 2022-23, before Zacks became Online Editor (left), to the editorial team plus the staff writers, photographers, and artists (right) during his tenure.
Our paper’s priority is the print edition, so the website can often be left behind. My goal was to stop that from happening by ensuring that each section published at least two of their stories online each month. As Online Editor, I made a few organizational changes to the website. I made it easier to find and contact our staff, adding a rotation of bios to the bottom of the home page and adding staff writers and photographers to our digital staff list. I added our editorial policies and our takedown policy to our homepage. I also made it my goal to have our staff win a “Best of SNO” badge each year, since we don’t usually have a large enough audience or staff to win any other SNO awards. However, I was able to work with my co-editor-in-chief and pull together some of our more unique stories to win the “Story Excellence” badge as well.