Audience and Social Media Strategy
Even the best stories mean nothing if people aren’t resonating with them.
Although I love writing, my ultimate goal is to work in a role where I can ensure news reaches its audience where they are, instead of forcing them to come to us.
The Daily Tar Heel
This academic year, I began my role as The Daily Tar Heel’s inaugural Community Engagement Managing Editor. Along with working with the rest of the management and editing team to produce high-quality daily news and weekly print copies, I specialize in fostering engagement strategies to boost our presence among our readers.
Focuses:
A need to increase newsletter engagement as we rebuild our subscriber base on Mailchimp after switching away from iContact
A lack of LinkedIn presence, leaving the platform widely underutilized
Despite being a “teaching paper,” some of our writers weren’t learning the skills they needed to be successful journalists — they’re part of our community, too
Approaches:
Editing and scheduling newsletters with varied introductions, link presence, structure and subject lines to best reach students
Overseeing The DTH’s LinkedIn while brainstorming with Audience Engagement editors on how to best use it
Implementing more structured newsroom “workshops” to teach staffers about journalism, sometimes featuring guest speakers
Results:
Daily newsletters grew to an extremely high open rate for our 61,000+ subscribers, along with weekly desk-specific newsletters with click rate ranging from 1 to 9% for their smaller respective segments
LinkedIn impressions increased by 78.6% in my first month, reactions by 40%, followers by 142.2% and reposts by 150%
Staffers began attending more workshops, asking more questions and giving positive feedback about the wide variety of skills they learned
The Southern Environmental Law Center
During my summer 2025 internship with the Southern Environmental Law Center, I focused primarily on media research and social copy. The experience taught me so much about using social media as a tool to share information with a broader public audience.
Focuses:
A desire to create social media content across a variety of platforms to increase awareness of SELC for various demographics
The need to have a single resource to sort through all SELCs partner organizations for easy access come social media
A need to better understand how SELC, its thought leadership and its focus areas are being portrayed in the news
Approaches:
Drafted social media copy and adapted it to platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram, along with creating graphics or connecting visuals to keep it engaging.
Built upon a former intern’s unfinished project to categorize SELCs 100+ partners in one easy-to-access database
Conducted media research and browsed through weekly Cision Digest clips to find content featuring SELC attorneys, analysts or partners.
Results:
Was able to use Sprout Social to look at the analytics across platforms. Some posts performed extremely well, garnering above SELCs average shares, comments and likes
Team is now able to refer to a massive (confidential) spreadsheet organizer with various information about all SELC partners
SELC’s social media featured reposts of articles, podcasts and other projects that correlated to SELC and its people to garner more attention in online spaces.
UNC Chapel Hill Pakistan Society
UNC Pakistan Society is a registered student organization for Pakistani Tar Heels to find community and stay close to their culture while at college. I’ve spent the last two years as the boards’ Creative Chair (formerly the Social Media and Design Chair)
Boosted online engagement with increased shares, an influx of subscribers, and over 100k visitors during our busiest month
Used social media platforms to advertise our annual fundraiser, Mehndi Ki Raat, eventually selling out of tickets
Focuses:
A lack of connection with Pakistani students online, not just at UNC but across the state
The need to advertise our annual fundraiser, Mehndi Ki Raat, to ensure people attend and share event information
To better contextualize the student organization in a broader scope as international conflicts and affairs impact Pakistani people
Approaches:
Posted consistent creative recaps of events, projects and social hours for members to share with their friends and family
Created unique brand templates via Canva and identified the public image we hope to put out for Mehndi Ki Raat
Collaborated with the board to write statements and create posts about events in Pakistan to paint a full vision of our organization in global context
Results:
Boosted online engagement on Instagram and TikTok with increased shares, subscribers, and over 100k visitors during our busiest month in the 2024-25 academic year
The organization consistently reused the templates and my brand identity package, creating a cohesive visual identity for MKR and general activities
Our content became more complete and representative of our organization as a whole, making it more prominent not only on campus but in Pakistani contexts
