Web Content
Widget Styles and Embeds
At the beginning of my two years as editor-in-chief, the website—which was built on the platform Student Newspapers Online, or SNO—looked great. However, some of the widgets were very disorganized, did not have borders, and did not have consistent pictures. During those two years, I worked on the website heavily and changed up the widgets to be consistent in color, style, and border.
During my senior year, I changed all of the widgets to a better style (a change from SNO's widget style 5 to 2) and added several embed codes that wove some other platforms into our site. This included Spotify music and podcast playlists, directly linking those aspects of our content creation to the site. I also added some multimedia and social media menu items, including a page with a Juicer embed that displays our most recent Instagram posts and updates in a computer-friendly format.
Working with the website taught me the importance of trial-and-error and the patience that must come with it, as it is a very tedious process. However, it was worth it because I learned how to change widgets and make the website look as professional as possible. I consider this one of my biggest and longest-lasting impacts on the publication because I spent many hours improving the site and my senior year focused 100% of the attention on our site rather than our print issues due to COVID-19.
Old
New
*Note* the left side is the old design of the website from August 2019 when I inherited the position of editor-in-chief. The format was saved and replaced with the new format for a short time in order to get a picture of what the website used to look like, thus why all of the stories are the same.
Besides the addition of the Ross Riot Podcast embed, I made every one of these changes that you see between old and new. The improved design and maneuverability of the website allowed our publication to gain popularity and better display the amazing content that the staff produced.
School Spirit Package
When I wrote a long-form feature on school spirit for one of our print issues, I felt great about its design, features and pictures. However, when I posted it online, I noticed it was missing something. I then put a video embed from the halftime drumline performance at the football game to add a bit more of an appealing visual. I think that a video to go with the story allowed the reader to immerse themselves within the story and gain their own point of view on the argument. I wish I had a video or picture from football games from years past to be able to compare, but I feel one video is better than none. Click here for the story.
Immersive Images
I discovered the long-form container story format online during my junior year when playing around with SNO. This format has an option for an immersive featured image rather than simply a featured image above or beside the story. I found that, as long as the picture is more horizontal than vertical, it works beautifully. I felt the immersive image feature made our stories with good pictures far more visually appealing and professional, but doesn't work with, for example, shorter news stories.
Old Format (Featured Image Beside Story)
New Format (Immersive Image)
Social Media
During my junior year, I led the creation of our new Omega Instagram account. The account had around 600 followers when I graduated, which was up from around 180 followers at the beginning of my junior year. We didn't have a specified social media editor for either of those years, so my co-editors-in-chief and I led the promotion and updating of our social media.
I posted advertisements for our website, links and previews for the stories we publish, news and opinion video packages by staff members, breaking news updates and fun, entertaining posts in my two years as editor-in-chief to enhance the Omega's publicity in print and online.
We also revived our Twitter my senior year, which had around 500 followers when I graduated. We posted mainly the same things there as on Instagram, but we would also add some extra news bits that didn't necessarily have pictures to go with them. During the time in which our high school was fully remote, our Twitter and Instragram functioned as the key promoters of our website and the strongest connection between our student body and the content we post.
