Coming off a record homecoming attendance compared to recent years, this year’s Student Association administration has made some huge strides when it comes to how they promote their events. They have taken advantage of marketing strategies that are used by major companies and incorporated them into their organization.
Advisor Meg Pierce has stressed the importance of better promotion of their events, utilizing social media as their primary source of advertising. She even invited the social media manager of the Detroit Red Wings to speak to the Student Administration about how to optimize their online presence.
“Teenagers are really good at consuming social media, but actually using it to promote is a whole other thing,” Pierce said. “ Bringing in [the Red Wings social media manager] to talk about how to promote, when to promote, how often to start posting, and what are some fun posts to get people to engage with the content made communication for homecoming much better this year.”
Pierce described how this process helped them evaluate which of their previous strategies were effective, and which ones were not. Overall, what Pierce and the rest of the Student Association realized is that their promotions need to be more timely and organized in the form of marketing packages.
“If you work professionally in marketing, [marketing packages] of logos and graphics used to promote are what people are creating,” Pierce said. “We have to be prepared to start putting these out in a timely manner to get people’s heads up so they think, ‘Oh, this event is coming’”.
These initiatives have culminated in the Student Association’s variety of social media pages. President Lucy Stidham ’25 commends the organization’s TikTok and Instagram pages.
“Our most effective promotion is definitely through social media like Instagram, which helps us get the word out easier,” Stidham said. “Our TikTok is new this year and it has been really helpful to promote across multiple platforms.”
Stidham urges students to keep up with these pages so they can stay up to date with future events. Looking into the future, Stidham says she is excited to organize the winter Adopt-a-Family class fundraiser again for another year, stressing the positive student feedback she’s received. Aside from that event, Stidham and the Student Association as a whole have a lot planned for this school year.
“For our winter fundraisers, a lot of students enjoy buying and delivering gifts in their third hour for their families,” Stidham said. “Later, in the spring, we’ll have another pep assembly and powderpuff football game.”
For some students, including Mats Duffy ’25, the changes in the way the Student Association markets are very apparent, especially when it comes to homecoming.
“I actually knew what the theme was this year,” Duffy said. “I didn’t even know there were themes before, but I saw their post on Instagram and found out for myself.”
Duffy admires how the Student Association has encouraged himself and his friends to get more involved with the school. He says that this year’s homecoming was his favorite because all of his friends were more excited about it. He charts this excitement due to the increased hype through social media.
“Student Association events help me interact with my classmates and friends,” Duffy said. “Now that everyone is more informed about what’s going on, the events are a lot more enjoyable.”
