Marketing and Audience Engagement
Advertising
We work with local businesses to advertise and generate money for our program. To do this, we reach out to various stakeholders within the community, especially ones who students in journalism have a personal connection to. We have learned that when we contact someone with a personal connection, they are much more likely to buy an ad because they feel that they have a personal stake in Little Hawk Journalism.
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This year, we've worked with Bread Garden Market, a local independent grocery store, the Iowa City Public Library, Basta, Wildwood Saloon, and Dr. Suzanne Stock Orthodontist. We offer placement in both the print newspaper and on thelittlehawk.com
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My advisor and I also developed a new advertising plan this year in order to align with the yearbook's advertising program. We wanted to eliminate confusion for businesses who wanted to buy an advertisement, but were unsure what the difference between an ad in the Red and White versus The Little Hawk was. In past years, we sold advertisements per issue, but this year, we introduced our advertising packages, which you can see on the right.
In, Out, and About
On paper day, we set up a big folding table in the City High foyer. Every City High student is bound to walk by at some point in the day, and most of them know enough about The Little Hawk to know that they should take a copy, at least for the games.
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​During my combined lunch/journalism period, I drag one of my friends out with me to drop papers off around Iowa City. Our go-to places include the Iowa City Public Library, Bread Garden, Yotopia Frozen Yogurt, the Chauncey building, Sidekick Books, and West High and Southeast Elementary, as well as a few other locations downtown. Because we want The Little Hawk to be read by all community members, it's important for us to do outreach and make our newspaper accessible.
Social Media Promotion
In 2025, social media editor Ramy Makawi and I won fifth place in the nation for our social media promotion. This was due in large part to the way that we marketed our publications on Instagram. In addition to regular posts when we had new articles published on thelittlehawk.com, we also posted fact checks for the student senate presidential campaign, which were easy for students to scroll through and learn about, various advertisements for our yearbook, the Red and White, and longer, more informative Instagram posts for some of our in-depth stories. We also publish an annual ranking of the top ten most popular news stories on thelittlehawk.com, which increases engagement on our website because our audience wants to read the most popular stories, even if they were written months ago.
Cutest Couple Contest
Every year, we host a Cutest Couple Contest on our Instagram account. We ask couples to submit photos of themselves, which we post on Instagram, and our followers vote for who they want to win. This allows for direct audience engagement because each couple is able to participate by sending a photo to The Little Hawk and anyone who wants to can vote on their favorite couple.
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Around this time, we usually see a spike in the number of visitors to thelittlehawk.com. By doing the cutest couples contest, we're not only increasing engagement on our social media, but also on our website.
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Below: a selection of submissions from last year's Cutest Couple Contest
