Marketing & Engagement

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Branding your staff through social media

Instead of maintaining absolute secrecy and hoarding your work until it’s published, be open about what you’re working on.

Involving alumni in your publication

This lesson focuses on how your staff can tap into the resources of your journalism community to build your identity, your program, resources and interest in your publication. This lesson provides several examples of programs, publications and opportunities that can be built into the traditions and calendar of your publication year.

Featuring underrepresented students in the yearbook

Feature Pages and Feature Sections provide contemporary and meaningful forums to include personal coverage and varied forms of storytelling in your publication.

Using your theme to develop your brand

This lesson walks students through four aspects of using their theme to create an image/brand that can be used to promote the work and the staff.

We built this community — A case study of a community-building journalism project

In this lesson, we will look at three different types of media (from professional and scholastic domains) that have undertaken storytelling projects in order to humanize faces in a crowd and issues in the world.

Writing an advertising plan and script

In this lesson, students learn to prepare what they will say and how to prepare to sell business ads or sponsorships.

Choosing social media tools

In this lesson, students use a decision-making model to determine the most appropriate social media tool for their intended purpose.

Evaluating your entrepreneurship

In this lesson, students develop an “entrepreneurship report card” that could be used to determine the strength of a staff’s entrepreneurial activities.

Audience involvement and tragedy

This single-day lesson challenges students to consider questions of ethics when involving citizens as journalists through social media in dangerous breaking news events.

Creating a large-scale fundraiser

This single-day lesson introduces students to the 5K race fundraising event used by a newspaper staff from Rockville, Maryland.

Managing online advertising

This lesson introduces students to the online advertising model used by a student media program in Missouri.

Assessment of introductory and public relations units

Defining an audience with market research

This lesson is designed to introduce students to the practice of market research as the basis for entrepreneurial strategy decisions including defining an audience and exploring the implications of social media on traditional market research strategies.

Understanding budgeting concerns

This single-day lesson begins with an introduction to budgeting and the factors that media organizations must consider when putting together a budget.

Marketing and theme building

Creating market research surveys

This lesson is designed to give students practice in writing effective market research questions with a focus on promoting a publication and advertising through the use of social media.

Comparing advertising and fundraising as revenue sources

In this lesson, students apply their knowledge of sales and marketing concepts and budgeting techniques to think about the pros and cons of advertising and fundraising and to get practical about advertising and fundraising in their own communities

Envisioning a new publication

Writing social media posts for breaking news

A lesson introducing students to techniques used in writing for social media, with a particular focus on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Pinterest

Creating an advertising brochure

Students apply their knowledge of sales and marketing concepts and budgeting techniques to get practical about advertising in their own communities.

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