Newsletters
An excerpt from one newsletter
I’m the inaugural City Cast newsletter editor, having helped launch the first daily newsletter and podcast in a network of 13 cities and counting. Three years, 700 newsletters, and an ESP migration later, the Hey Chicago newsletter has the biggest audience in the network. Here are popular editions:
➕ Read more Hey Chicago newsletters here.
While at Illinois Newsroom, I launched News Around Illinois. Over several months, the weekly newsletter attracted more than 8,500 subscribers in the mid-sized news market of Champaign-Urbana. Some newsletters that performed well:
At BuzzFeed News, I wrote an edition of the copy desk’s monthly newsletter, Quibbles & Bits, reflecting on my time in the newsroom.
For The Fashion Network, I send out newsletters via Mailchimp to general members to remind them about the latest club happenings (e.g., shoot sign-ups, schedule details, social events and content submissions). Some samples:
Audience Engagement
Penning the daily Chicago newsletter for City Cast, I have spearheaded weekly trivia that has generated hundreds of answers and callouts about everything from readers’ hot takes on the city’s NASCAR street race to a Christkindlmarket mug bracket. These callouts have also fueled episodes on our sister podcast.
I’ve also created multiple carousels on Instagram to inform our thousands of followers about who we are and how they can get involved (e.g., summer bucket list).
I wrote a copy editing quiz about the difference between em dashes, en dashes and hyphens while at BuzzFeed News.
At The Fashion Network, I helped implement a cohesive color scheme to help with branding and overall aesthetic.
I also assisted our marketing director to conduct social media audits to see how our page is performing. Highlights from our shoots (when we were able to do photo shoots in person) are organized so followers can see how the club operates. While our website was under construction, we implemented a Linktree to aggregate information about the club.
Website Redesign
I worked with the managing editor for online to redesign the Daily Illini’s longform homepage so featured images wouldn’t be cut off when readers went to the landing site.
After
Before
