How journalists can measure and engage with their audiences: Sign up now for Knight Center’s new online course

There is a lot of content fighting for attention in today’s media ecosystem. That’s why it’s special when someone decides to land on your page, flip open your publication or view your program.

But how do you find out who those people are and figure out how to keep them coming back? How do you attract even more people so that your news organization’s reporting can reach more people in a more engaged way?

The next Big Online Course (BOC) from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas will help you answer those questions.

Register today for “Knowing your audience: strategies for increasing the reach and engagement of your journalism,” and join instructor Amanda Zamora, chief audience officer for The Texas Tribune, for this four-week course that runs from July 15 to Aug. 11, 2019.

“Audience development has become so important in many newsrooms, but it’s often isolated to a few specialist roles,” Zamora said. “This course will help journalists in various roles understand how to apply audience development strategies to their work — whether they are creating content, managing social platforms, or working on product design and development.”

Week one will show how to create an audience map that will serve editorial or content goals. In week two, students will explore who they intend to reach with their product. For week three, Zamora will teach how to draft a promotional plan, including content optimization and campaign tracking. And finally, in week four, students will learn how to measure their success by setting quantitative and qualitative goals.

Zamora, who leads audience growth and engagement at the nonprofit Texas Tribune, previously worked for The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, The Washington Post, ProPublica and the Austin American-Statesman. This is the fourth Knight Center course that Zamora has taught related to engagement, the first having taken place in 2014.

This BOC costs $95 and includes a certificate of completion for those who fulfill all course requirements. Unlike our MOOCs, which are open courses that normally attract a few thousand people and focus on more generic and introductory topics, BOCs are limited to a few hundred students and focus on more specific and advanced topics.

Zamora will teach the course using video instruction, presentations, readings, discussion forums and quizzes.

The course is asynchronous, meaning students can complete the activities during the days and times that are most convenient. It is open to everyone, but geared toward those working in audience development.

So register now and be on your way to learning who your audience is and how you can better reach them.

About the Knight Center

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created in 2002 by Professor Rosental Alves, Knight Chair of Journalism at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas, thanks to the generous donations of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight Center’s distance learning program began in 2003 and is funded in part by the Knight Foundation. Over the past six years, the Knight Center MOOCs have reached more than 170,000 people in 200 countries and territories.