Advertising and Public Relations Manager
Reporter Magazine
About this company and role:
Reporter magazine is a completely student-run organization through the Rochester Institute of Technology. The magazine is a 32-page full-color issue distributed on the first Monday of the month for the duration of the academic year, supplemented with regular online content. As the Advertising and Public Relations Manager, I held a unique two-fold position:
Advertising: Using consultative sales techniques, I helped clients with advertising needs and closed on short-term and long-term sales contracts with Reporter Magazine. I created and presented media and advertising packages to prospective customers and helped in determining the design and layout of digital and print advertisements.
Public Relations: I strategically planned, implemented, and monitored social media platforms using an editorial calendar. On a daily basis, I monitored and moderated online community activity through various social listening platforms.
Defining Ad Sales and Social Strategy
Collegiate roles often have high turnover rates. Simplifying the role for each candidate benefits the organization in the long term. A major part of my role with Reporter Magazine was defining the ad sales and social media process that occurred within my role.
In creating this strategy, I started with defining common advertising terminology and went into more details of the specific operations within the magazine. This created an adaptable and easy-to-learn strategy for anyone to pick up quickly.
The structure of this strategy went as follows:
Advertisements
Terms to Know
Client Etiquette
Ad Process Requirements
Typical Process
Deadlines
Example Production Calendar
Social Media
Posting Schedule
Social Media Insights Per Platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat)
Content Criteria
Organizational Tips
*A copy of this strategy is not available due to limitations of public access
Promotion as Eccentric as the Brand
Every year, Reporter releases an April Fools' Day issue appropriately titled Distorter. Accompanying the release of this issue was an in-person event to hand out the magazine and celebrate the holiday. I decided to shift social strategy to focus on promoting the issue and increasing attendance at the event.
My approach to this relied on two Facebook features:
Event Management
I created a Distorter event page containing graphics and copy associated with the issue. My team was encouraged to use this page as a way to instantly invite their collegiate network.
Live In-Feed Post
Facebook Live was a fairly new feature at this time and my feed was flooded with branded accounts experimenting with this feature. I was particularly inspired by this IHOP stream when creating a Live Distorter piece.
When creating this Live, I wanted to showcase different unique objects that lived in the Reporter office. The objects, as random and out of place as they were, fit the theme of the issue and exuded the right amount of weird and unusual. In this feed, I included a link to the event and featured different items that would be available at the event.