Many news organizations have shed jobs this year, but certain industry segments are hiring, including audience engagement.
The Institute reached out to Kelsey Harrell, engagement producer for the Tampa Bay Times, to learn more about her role, the skills involved, and what it takes to be successful. Here is an edited version of our conversation.
What do you do as a newsroom engagement producer or an audience manager?
Harrell: It varies, depending on what publication you work with. But at the Tampa Bay Times, our audience team focuses on managing our homepage, sending out push alerts via our app, and then managing all branded social media accounts. Then we have a team of producers within the engagement team who focus on newsletters as well. So, have our hands in three different parts of the newsroom. … I also run our food Instagram account.
Can you give a specific example of how you engage with the Tampa Bay community?
Harrell: Hurricanes are huge news events for us, and that’s a time when we’re making sure our audience has all the information they need and can make informed decisions that help them stay safe. We’re sending out push alerts and putting together Instagram stories as we get updates about closures and evacuation orders, among other things. As storms move in, we ask our audience to let us know what they’re seeing around Tampa Bay; we ask the same thing after a hurricane.
What are some of the misconceptions about what you do in the newsroom?
Harrell: I think a misconception can be what falls under [the definition of] audience and what falls under [the definition of] digital and whether or not they’re combined. That’s because there isn’t an industry standard right now. For example, some places call the job an audience growth producer, some call it engagement producer, or others call it social media producer. They’re all the same thing, but the role might have different responsibilities depending on what publication you’re at.
Is an engagement producer responsible for reaching out directly to readers?
Harrell: Not fully. We work with reporters if they’re doing a story that requires a bit of crowdsourcing. We’ll put together a post to go out to our readers. For example, recently, a reporter was working on a story about 2024 college grads. He wanted to know what their experience was like in college because they didn’t get a high school graduation because of the pandemic. We made a post, put it on social media, and asked readers: “Do you fit these criteria? We’d love to talk to you.” Then, provide the contact information for the reporter.
So, what other ways does the Tampa Bay Times use engagement to reach readers?
Harrell: We use it for crowdsourcing and to promote our thoroughly reported stories out there to a wide audience. Even daily stories, you know, like the city council meeting, are still very valuable to a reader. So, our goal is to get eyeballs on the stories and … make sure that our reporters’ work gets seen.
How can a reporter think like an engagement producer?
Harrell: Reporters can be thinking of ways to share their stories on social media that are tailored to the specific platform. The audience on Instagram consumes content differently than Reddit users or Facebook users. If there’s a story a reporter worked closely with a photojournalist on and there’s good art, they could suggest that story be posted on Instagram. Maybe there’s an opportunity to make a video for a story. Coming up with suggestions and thinking of audience engagement early on makes it easier to loop your newsroom’s team in. Also, thinking about if there’s a compelling way to write a summary of your story for the newsletter and thinking about search engine optimization as you’re experimenting with headlines is important.
If you are a journalist interested in this kind of role, what are the skills that you need to succeed?
Harrell: I’m present on pretty much every social media platform in a personal capacity, so I keep up with the trends and apply them to what we’re working on. … I had a background working with social media analytics coming into my position, and that’s been really helpful. … Knowing how to use Google Trends is also helpful if we need to work with a reporter when making any changes to headlines. … Overall, having a knowledge of what audiences look like on each social media platform is really helpful because audiences are different depending on where you’re trying to reach them.
How did you learn what works on each media platform and the differences in your audiences?
Harrell: For me, it’s been trial and error. When I came into my current newsroom, there were already guidelines and a strategy in place, and things keep changing with the platforms … like Twitter, now X, and Facebook not prioritizing news anymore, and Instagram going back and forth on prioritizing Reels. … So we have to keep making adjustments.
What are some of the obstacles you’ve had to overcome in your work?
Harrell: A big one is that the platform algorithms are constantly changing and working against us, then having to adjust things as needed. Another … is helping the newsroom know what you do. It’s not a traditional journalism role, and sometimes, there are misconceptions about when exactly you need to contact the engagement team and for what. It’s easier if a reporter brings the engagement team in to start discussing the visual potential for a story and for everyone to work together from the beginning to plan out each piece.
What do you find most satisfying about your work?
Harrell: I really love putting together Instagram content for a story: reading through what the reporter has written and thinking about ways to highlight the reporting and the photojournalism to create a complete package of content for our readers. I just love putting a lot of thought behind how we present our stories to our readers because a lot of thought went into the story itself.
Is there one story you worked on this year that you’d like to highlight?
Harrell: I did the promotion for our investigative series, “Deadly Dose”. A team of reporters spent about a year looking into the kratom industry in Florida. That was published in a three-part series, breaking down what kratom is, where it comes from, and how it’s impacting people in the state of Florida. That’s one I’m particularly proud of how I packaged it, and it was a very, very intense and thorough story.
What advice would you give a journalist thinking about a job like this?
Harrell: There is a lot of training online. Try to find and take as many classes focused on engagement and digital as you can. That was, for me, a good starting point. Once I got my job, I was able to do more kind of on-the-job learning and be mentored by my editors.