Engaging Your Audience

Other Chapters

Optimization

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality of your webpage to improve its chances of appearing in search engine results. There are hundreds of things that determine SEO, but we're only going to focus on a few: links, keywords, HTML tags, and metadata.

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks aren't only important for user navigation and for finding information. If a search engine sees that your article has a lot of links, it views it as a higher quality webpage.

Keywords

Keywords are terms people enter into a search engine. We recommend placing keywords within your story’s page title, headline, first and last paragraphs, and subheaders.

HTML

HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language, is a coding language that determines the structure of a webpage using tags. For example, the <p> tag creates a new paragraph, and the <h1> tag creates a new header. Placing keywords between <h1> tags lets search engines find your webpage when a user enters the same keyword in their search query. Proper use of HTML, such as making sure your <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> tags are in the proper order, also increases accessibility, which in turn boosts SEO.

Metadata

Metadata is the data about a webpage that search engines use metadata to understand additional information about the webpage outside its topic. Metadata comes in meta tags such as titles, descriptions, and keywords, but can also include information such as an article’s date, subject, source, and author.

Social Media Optimization

Social media optimization (SMO) is when you make decisions about your webpage to encourage sharing on social media.

Platform

Where you share your story matters. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the big four of social platforms. Prospective students use Twitter and Instagram the most, so you should make sure to share your feature story on both. Some will take a look at your college's Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but these platforms are better for engaging current students and alumni.

Scheduling

Not a lot of people are going to see your story if you share it at 3 a.m. Deciding when to post is just as important as where you post. According to a 2020 study by SproutSocial, the following are the best times to post for higher education:

Facebook

Best times: Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m.
Best day: Wednesday
Worst day: Sunday

Best times: Wednesday from 8–10 a.m. and noon, Thursday at 9 a.m. and 1–2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m.
Best day: Wednesday and Thursday
Worst day: Sunday

Twitter

Best times: Saturday, 5–6 p.m.
Best day: Saturday
Worst day: Sunday

Instagram

Best time: Friday at 10 a.m.
Best day: Friday
Worst day: Sunday

Hashtags

Just as keywords and HTML tags make webpages findable on search engines, hashtags make posts findable on social media. A hashtag can categorize your post among others, attaching it to trending topics.

Try not to use more than two, though! More than two is #annoying #to #read.

Multimedia

Visuals are key for getting attention on social media. People are more likely to engage with your post, and thus click the link to your story, if the post includes a photo or video.

Engagement

A great way to use social media to promote your story sounds obvious—be social! Social posts are an easy way to speak directly to prospective students and other audiences. Be sure to tag relevant groups such as student organizations to get them involved as well. The more people engaged in the conversation, the more clicks you'll likely get on your story.

Navigation

Your story engages with audiences even if you're not directly involved. Navigation, which is how users move between webpages, is a critical form of engagement that distinguishes online news from printed news.

Hyperlinks are the heart of navigation. Think about both search engines and social media. You have your results and posts, but then what? You click a hyperlink that brings you to your feature story.

There are two types of hyperlinks to consider when engaging prospective students: internal and external.

Internal Hyperlinks

Internal hyperlinks are linked to other sections on the current website including other webpages, files, page anchors. For example, this is an internal hyperlink to this website's homepage.

Using internal hyperlinks is very important when engaging prospective students. Prospective students are browsing your college's website to collect as much information as possible to help them decide whether or not to apply. Be sure to include as many internal hyperlinks as possible, linking to program pages, admissions pages, and tuition pages.

Furthermore, internal links enhance webpage quality and keep users on your school's website longer. This boosts web traffic, which then boosts SEO and findability. To summarize, internal links are great for the health of your school's web presence.

External Hyperlinks

External hyperlinks bring users to webpages outside of the current website.

While not as helpful in boosting web traffic or answering prospective student questions about your institution, external hyperlinks can help provide supplementary information and credibility to your feature story. Linking to external sources such as the U.S. World and News Report can promote your school in an engaging way.

Accessibility

It's hard to engage with readers if they're unable to read your story. If you truly want to engage with all prospective students, you need to be mindful of those with disabilities. Accessibility on the web is determined by how easily all people can use and engage with a webpage.

Those with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments use special programs and assistive devices such as screen readers to use the internet. Webpages need to be optimized to be usable by those with disabilities and their devices.

Alternative Text and Captions

Any multimedia element you include in your feature story should include alternative text (or alt text for short), which is a description of the photo/video/graphic that can be read by screen readers. This is important for the visually impaired to fully understand your story.

Alt text is slightly different from captions. Captions featured below pictures and videos should provide a description, but can include information outside of the photo/video. Alt text should only describe what the photo/video contains as detailed as possible.

If it is a video or sound clip, both captions and alt text should include a word before the description that indicates the medium. For example, a video's description should begin with "WATCH: ..." or "VIDEO: ..."

Logical Structure

Headings, subheadings, and paragraphs do more than make articles easily readable. These formats and their HTML tags associated with them make up the structure of your news story. Assistive devices rely on HTML tags to read the text in the correct order.

Although some headers might look nicer than others, you need to keep headers in a logical order. Screen readers will start with headings <h>, then read the paragraphs <p> below them. Heading 1 <h1> should come before Heading 2 <h2> and so forth. If you start with a Heading 2, the screen reader will skip to Heading 2, and the user will be provided information in the wrong order.

Header 1

Paragraph

Header 2

Paragraph

Descriptive Links

Any link you include in your story should use descriptive text so the reader knows exactly where the link will bring them to. When adding a hyperlink, try to imagine what the link would look like completely out of context.

Do:

This is a website about online writing for Higher Education Public Relations.

Don't:

Learn more.

Subtitles and Transcripts

To help those with auditory disabilities understand spoken words in videos, any video you add to your story should include clear subtitles. The same is true for standalone audio clips that should include a transcript. See Figure 1 for an example of a video with subtitles.

Microsoft Word can help you out by transcribing audio straight to a Word document. Always double-check that the words match what's being said, however, as the transcription might have mistakes.

For more information on web accessibility, check out The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Figure 2

WATCH: The Environmental Club works as a team throughout the day, transforming HEPR Park from an environmental issue to a bright neighborhood venue.

Summary

Audience engagement is at the heart of public relations. Using online techniques such as SEO and SMO are critical in not only reaching prospective students, but conversing with them in a way that answers their questions. It's important to write your feature stories in a way that not only gets them to apply, but is accessible to everyone. Using hyperlinks and HTML, it's up to you to determine how prospective students can navigate to the information they need to make choices on applying.

Now that you've learned how to engage prospective students, read on to learn more about how to report your topic, tell stories with visuals, and attribute borrowed content.

References and Further Reading

Arens, E. (2020, December 17). The best times to post on social media in 2020. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/.

Higher Education Marketing. (2014, April 25). Improving higher ed social media campaigns with #hashtag tracking. https://www.higher-education-marketing.com/blog/hashtag-tracking.

Hill, S., & Lashmar, P. (2013). Online journalism: The essential guide. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Hodge, E. (2020, October 9). Hashtags for student recruitment. Keystone Academic Solutions. https://www.keystoneacademic.com/news/hashtags-for-student-recruitment.

Search Engine Land. (2021, April 15). What is seo / search engine optimization?. https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo.