This document discusses strategies for engaging a community audience in participatory journalism for a story about the 100th anniversary of a high school mascot. It recommends inviting the community to participate early in the process, following up on social media leads, running highlights from community comments in print and online, distributing content through platforms and groups where the target audience spends time, and measuring the results through web analytics and other metrics to understand what engagement strategies were most effective. The key lessons are to make the community aware of the coverage, invite their participation and input, distribute content widely through relevant social channels, and use data to evaluate which approaches worked best to expand the story's reach and life cycle within the community.

1. Who’s the audience?
Participatory Journalism class expands
the life cycle of a community’s story
Joy Mayer | @mayerjoy | mayerj@missouri.edu

2. ⋙100th anniversary
of a bizarre high
school mascot
⋙Plenty of coverage
planned. But who’s it
for? And how do we
make it social?

3. ⋙Let the community
know what you’re
working on.
⋙Invite them to
participate — and
to invite others
to participate

4. ⋙Watch for what users
say, and follow up leads.
⋙This one led to a
story we weren’t
planning to write.

5. ⋙Run highlights from
social comments in the
“From Readers” section
⋙Roll these out early,
and tag Facebook
participants when their
comments publish.

6. ⋙Run highlights as
print teases throughout
the week leading up to
the big package

7. Talk concretely about the audience.
⋙Who would most
enjoy the content?
⋙Where do they
already get and share
information?
⋙How could we take
our content to them in
those places and on
those platforms?

8. ⋙Post in Facebook
groups where alums
spend time. Also with
school-related Twitter
accounts.

9. ⋙Make a flier with
coverage highlights.
Take 500 copies to
a home game.
⋙Include a url to track.
How many people
consume full content
based on handout?

10. ⋙Sell an ad on the
back to the school’s
booster club.

11. ⋙Provide Snapchat
coverage from the
game. Reach the
young audience where
they are.

12. ⋙Healthy web analytics
across the package, with
high percentage from
Facebook.
⋙Participation and buy-in
from community
throughout the process.
⋙A truly social life
cycle for this community
story.
⋙The main
crowdsourcing
Facebook post reached
15,000 users.
⋙We made $150
selling an ad based on
customized distribution.
⋙Track url from
handout. More than half
of recipients went to
website.
Then ask: What “worked”?

13. If it works, repeat it. If not, don’t.
But treat it all as an experiment.