Marketing & audience engagement
What’s a magazine if no one reads it? The answer: marketing.
Through major reforms to our social media promotion, we’ve successfully
distributed hundreds of Highlander magazines to the school community.
Read on to learn how I improved editor recruitment and expanded
our coverage to boost audience engagement.
Highlander
marketing
As editor-in-chief of The Highlander, I work closely with Ayana Ganjoo, our Marketing Editor-in-Chief, to ensure that all 600+ printed copies of the magazine are effectively distributed to the student body it is intended to reach.
Since we began actively promoting the magazine, its impact has been evident through how quickly copies are picked up from distribution boxes and magazine racks. Demand has grown to the point that we now assign students to regularly restock racks after initial distribution. You can learn more about our distribution strategy below.
Marketing
Social media planning
This year, the Scot Scoop social marketing team has helped Highlander take our marketing a step further by creating a structured promotion posting schedule for each type of video or post tied to a specific issue, maximizing exposure from the moment the magazines arrive. In the image to the right, you can see how the schedule is organized by platform and content type, highlighting the variety of social media marketing approaches we use as well as the dates they are scheduled to be published.
Marketing
Social media marketing types
Compared to the Highlander’s previous social media presence — which barely marketed the magazine’s release beyond a single announcement story — we now publish a series of targeted posts for every issue. These posts not only promote the magazine itself but also highlight specific content, allowing us to better reach and engage each section’s intended audience.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF CENTERSPREAD
INSTAGRAM REEL
- Interview with photographers, writers, and editor of the section
- Emphasizes why the story was seen as important to cover and picked
- Creates better understanding of the issue theme
SLIDESHOW FEATURE
INSTAGRAM REEL
- Highlights various stories in the magazine through an engaging, moving format
- Intentionally choose spreads that feature school body to create interest
- Created on Canva with a template used for each issue
ISSUE SNEAK PEEK
INSTAGRAM POST
- Shows the actual spreads from three to four sections of the magazine
- Intentionally highlights sections most likely to feature students, such as Community and Scotlight
- Encourages students to pick up physical copies of the magazine
Marketing
Distribution planning
Delivery locations
- On distribution day (typically the day we receive the magazines), the journalism class that meets first that day delivers copies to the classrooms listed below. At the beginning of the year, our advisor emails all staff to ask which teachers would like magazines for their classes.
- Magazine boxes and racks are placed in high-traffic areas around campus, including near the lunch line, outside the library in the main hallway, by the majority of freshman classrooms in A-Hall, and in the Performing Arts Center, where parents frequently attend performances.
- As indicated in the document, freshman classes receive additional copies. Students who are new to campus tend to be especially interested in the publication, and this approach also introduces them to the presence of journalism early on, encouraging them to consider enrolling in Media Arts in future years.
- Additionally, each issue of the magazine is updated to include our sponsors. We then deliver copies directly to those businesses, both to expand our reach within the broader community and as a courtesy to the individuals and organizations that support our publication.
Strategic event-based magazine distribution
- The Highlander’s distribution is partly influenced by Art Showcase’s successful strategy of distributing magazines during peak student activity in the quad.
- Targeted events for distribution included Winter Village week for the winter issue and Scotsland, our school fair, for the spring issue.
- We used the same approach and distributed magazines during Winter Village.
- All remaining copies after the usual delivery were successfully picked up by students, ensuring full circulation.
Marketing
Recruiting for media arts
One of the biggest responsibilities of leading a publication is not just focusing on the present, but also planning for the future. This means ensuring there is enough interest and capable people to sustain or even grow the team after you leave.
To address this, I revamped the presentation we had used last year. The previous version was a simple Google Slides template, so I redesigned it in Canva, added vibrant colors, and highlighted the key reasons someone might want to become a Highlander editor. This was especially important because many students are drawn to Scot Scoop editing, as it allows them to not have to write beats. I made sure to emphasize that Highlander editing, in contrast, requires a more creative and leadership-focused approach. (You can view the presentation to the left).
After the presentation, I made a point to walk around the room and speak with anyone who had questions or showed interest in joining the program. This year, we received so many applications that we actually had to turn some students away due to high demand. This was a stark contrast to last year, when we had to continue recruiting after the 2025 Spring NSPA convention and specifically ask rising juniors if they wanted to become Highlander interns, something we hoped to avoid this time.
While interest naturally varies from year to year, I believe one reason for our success is our outreach initiatives. By including media arts students in some of our celebrations and traditions — such as the BBQ — they were able to get a glimpse of the journalism community, which is very different from the media arts class environment. Experiencing the supportive, collaborative community within journalism likely made them more excited to join, since that sense of community is one of the best parts of being in the program.
Audience engagement
Audience engagement through coverage
Something I really wanted to focus on this year as the head of my publication is creating a magazine that truly appeals to its readership, and in our case, that would be the students. To do so, I employed four different tactics related to our coverage to accomplish this goal.
First, I changed our photojournalism based section Moments to Scotlight, a word play on our school mascot a Scottish Highlander. As its name suggests, instead of just capturing random events, we shifted the focus of the section to focusing on our immediate and local community of students and emphasizing various parts of our student body — like unique clubs like from the Magic the Gathering club at a trading event and Chamber Music Club busking outside of a local movie theater.
Second, I added an entirely new sports section to our magazine. Last year, the only sports-related content only ever appeared either grouped in the photojournalism Moments section or in opinion and entertainment about super bowl. I knew this wasn’t really sufficient—with a separate sports section, we’d be both emphasizing our athletic department that has 26 different sports teams while appealing to that sector of our school since they now know that every issue we’ll be featuring them and encouraging dynamic design with action shots.
Third, I revised our pitch form and editing rubric to prioritize the relevance of sources from the very beginning of the reporting process. As a result, writers now frequently include at least one student source in their articles. This approach helps ensure that stories remain rooted in student perspectives and allows coverage of broader state or national topics to be meaningfully tied back to how they impact people on our campus.
Fourth, I placed a stronger emphasis on localized angles across all sections of the magazine. Even when covering larger issues, we challenge writers to ask how these stories connect to our school or community. This intentional focus reinforces the idea that journalism is most powerful when readers can see themselves reflected in the coverage, ultimately strengthening the magazine’s relevance and appeal to its core audience.
Moments → Scotlight
Above is an example of a Scotlight spread from our first issue. The spread is both related to the theme of being environmentally conscious and also fits within the guidelines of the section by featuring the Green Team club at our school.
Student sources
In this image, three Carlmont seniors from the Mission Marine Club proudly hold the spread in which they were featured for the first issue of Scotlight.
Sports
Above is a wrestler from my high school who was featured in the third issue; he had transferred from a different school in Delaware. Centering the story around the school’s wrestling team is just one example of how we aim to engage a large portion of our school community: athletes.
Localized angles
Above, Zareen’s, a popular local restaurant in Redwood City, was featured in Issue 2 as part of the theme on America’s diversity. In addition, Carlmont students appear in the images, adding another layer of relevance for our school community.