Chicken or the Egg?

When it comes to storytelling there is a lot to consider. First, creating a story plan that aligns with your institution's mission and initiatives. From there, how will your multigenerational audience engage with the story? Some will want print while others will stick to social media. That means considering editing the piece to work across different channels. And this all needs to be done with a small and mighty team. Having a strategic plan to create and leverage content is imperative. Here are six things to consider.

1. The Audience

One of the unique challenges in creating stories for higher ed is the broad range of audiences: Alumni, donors, Prospective students, parents, and the campus community. If we narrow it to alumni, we are looking at a readership that spans from their early 20s into their 90s—that is a lot of generations and a lot of different reader habits. Baby boomers prefer traditional media like printed newspapers and books while the Millenial and Gen Z generations prefer social media and Gen X consumes a mix of print and digital.

When you are crafting a story, consider the person who will spend time reading a long-form narrative as well as the reader who will want to read something much shorter on social media. 

2. The story

Not all stories—or sources—lend themselves to narrative. You need tension, conflict, and resolution, and someone readers will route for. Sometimes, readers may be more interested in hearing from an expert than the writer, which is when a Q&A may make more sense. Or you have a string of interesting tidbits that don’t add up to a feature but would make for a fascinating infographic.

Just as you give careful consideration to how you’ll tell a story, you should give equal consideration to how you’ll tease it on social media—especially if your goal is to drive readers to your website. Users engage with content differently on different platforms, and you'll want to distill your copy and decide which stories make sense on each platform. For example, Instagram should be light, fun, and engaging, while LinkedIn can be a little meatier. For both, start with what makes users proud to be part of your community.

3. Directing the visuals

Even with the prevalence of digital and social media, in the world of higher education print tends to come first when it comes to developing a magazine story. However, we need to move away from being print-centric and consider how to direct the visuals for the digital version and leverage the assets for social. How will the format change? Typically it means vertical for print and horizontal for digital. In addition, how can animation be incorporated to heighten the visual interest of the digital art?

“When we are directing and designing stories for print and digital we look at how the two can connect and complement each other. For Georgetown Arts & Sciences, we will select a horizontal format for digital and a vertical for print. Or we may select a photo used within the interior print layout that ultimately tells more of a story as the primary visual in digital,” says Gabby Gordon, Senior Designer and Producer, 2communiqué.

Jodie Hein, Art Rep, Rapp Art adds, “If an illustration is going to be used for digital along with print it is important that the illustrator knows that at the beginning of the assignment. That way they can create the work in a way that can be easily adapted for a different format. Alternatively, they can create an alternate version or add motion.”

4. What about audio?

Introducing sound to a story adds another level of sensory engagement. Unfortunately, it is an asset that tends to be overlooked. Yet, consider the prevalence of narration and music on Instagram. 

For The Observer, an interview in The Issue, V. 4, we included an audio clip of the conversation with Elias Martinez, associate vice president for marketing and communications, Texas State University. The interview took place over Zoom so it made sense to include a clip for our readers to hear directly from Elias and allow for a deeper connection to who he is and the story.

Georgetown Business magazine expanded its reach by adding an audio version of the magazine. Martha Holland, associate director of publications and design, notes, “We wanted to offer the magazine for people to listen to on their commute or a walk in their neighborhood. For many of our readers, this is a great time to engage with them.” 

The Spring 2024 cover story, “Paper Chase,” read by Alice Ma ’27, is a captivating listen read by a student. 

She adds, “By working with students to narrate the content we deepened the connection between students and alumni.”

Curious about how sound can alter the experience of a story? Check-out this Elements of Custom Storytelling video about sound.

5. Make it a multimedia experience

In order to reach their 100,000-plus readership, the team at UAlbany magazine created digital “Magazine Minis” to expand on their bi-annual print magazine.

“Publishing a couple of articles online a year allows us to broaden our reach and stretch our storytelling skills. The minis include video, animation, and interactivity we could only do in digital,” notes Paul Miller, Senior Director of Advancement Communications. 

He adds, “We knew from doing the CASE Reader Survey that our younger alumni were receptive to digital stories. After publishing half a dozen minis, we’ve seen tremendous growth in traffic. By September of this year, we had surpassed our total traffic from the previous year. When we add the qualitative feedback in the form of comments, likes, and shares, we feel like we have a winning and repeatable strategy.”

6. Building on the feedback

It has always been difficult to measure the ROI of publishing a print magazine. Qualitative and quantitative data derived from digital and social media helps to better understand what readers are interested in. Not that it will replace editorial planning, but the information can assist. There have been great articles on this topic recently: Instinct Versus Data, Data Driven Creativity, and The Data Inspired Reader.

In-house teams are being asked to do more with the same resources. Not only does knowing your audience build confidence in leadership and allow you to take more risks, but by listening to your audience and understanding the possibilities of a story, you can make more informed decisions about which stories are worth the extra effort—and resources. When everyone is stretched thin, prioritizing how we spend our time is truly an asset, for us and our audiences. So in the end it is the chicken and the egg.