Looking for ways your audience can participate? Here are your newsroom reader call-out ideas for September (Part 1).
🎒Back to School 📚
We mentioned this one last month too, so here is a live example:
Reader photo gallery of kids going back to School. HBVL:
Seeing your child, and all the other families, doing the same thing - it's a special moment locals want to share and see represented!
🎂September: The Month With The Most Birthdays 🎁
Let’s start with an easy, low barrier to entry call-out. September is the month with most birthdays, and September 9th being the most common of all days!
Ideas:
Photo call-out: Who is celebrating their birthday this month? Let’s celebrate all September birthdays together.
Poll: Did or do you celebrate shared birthdays? Yes/No/As a kid Always.
Reader stories: Do you have many friends that you celebrate your birthday with? Did you celebrate together as kids? Do you have any funny family traditions? 🤝
📷 September: Save your photos month: 📷
Disasters—from floods to wildfires to tech failures—happen every day. Your memories shouldn't be lost with them. It was first observed in 2014 by the Association of Personal Photos Organizers.
Ideas:
Photo call out: Share one of your oldest photos: grandparents as children, old wedding photos?
Reader challenges: Your favourite photo of the month? Challenge to take 1 photo a week? Challenge to share a special photo from last year and tell the story.
🤝International Day of Charity (September 5th): 🤝
Ideas:
Reader Stories: Do you do charity work? Do you volunteer in the local community? We want to hear your stories.
Poll + story: This International day of charity, we want to know what causes are closest to your heart:
Animals
Children & Youth
Cultural & Education
Disabilities
Disaster Relief
Elderly
Environment
Global – Local Based
Health & Disease
Homeless
Hunger & Poverty
Other
+ share: Why that charity? What's your favourite way to support charities or causes you care about? Whether it's volunteering your time, donating goods, or a unique fundraising effort, share your inspiring initiatives.
Nominate call-out: Help us find the unsung hero in our community. The person that consistently goes above and beyond for a cause they believe in. Nominate them for our 'Community Champion' spotlight and tell us why they deserve recognition.
🏈 The NFL Football Season Kicks Off (September 5th) 🏈
The NFL is back in full swing, offering a wealth of opportunities for fan engagement. It would be interesting to see how many Europeans stay up or wake up at ungodly hours to watch!
Ideas:
Readers stories: Fan Rituals: Game day superstitions! What are your absolute must-do rituals before, during, or after a match to bring your team luck? From lucky socks to specific pre-game snacks, we want the details!
Debate call-out: Bold Predictions: Beyond the usual winners and losers, what's your most audacious prediction for the first month of the football season? Think a surprise player breakout, a controversial referee decision, or an unexpected managerial move.
Debate call-out: Summer Signings: Who do you think will be the signing of the season – the player who massively outperforms expectations for their price tag? And conversely, who's destined to be a costly flop? Let us know your predictions and reasoning!
Local Fan Focus: Are you part of a local football club or a passionate fan group? Share a photo or a short story about what makes your club special and what you're looking forward to this season.
Story call-out with optional photo: Memory lane: When and why did you become a football fan, and why did you pick your team?
📚International Literacy Day (September 8th) 📚
Such a great day, where you can tap into family routines, young people and adults alike.
Ideas:
Photo + story- Do you still read to your children before bed? Share a picture of their favourite bed time story.
Reader tips: How do you get your children into reading? Share your tips!
Photo call-out: What are you reading this month? or Your favourite books of all time?
Poll: Have your reading habits changed? I read more than before/ I read less/ I have always read about the same/ other + share your reasons why.
🧸Teddy Bear Day (September 9th)🧸
Reader Photo Call-Out: How many of us still have your first teddy bears or childhood toys? We want to see the pictures. Missing buttons, ripped ears, or in pristine condition - if you still have yours let’s show them off!
❤️🩹 World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10th): ❤️🩹
Reports show that more and more young people are turning to AI for help with their mental health, and Open AI has a court case against them following a young person’s tragic loss of life.
Poll: Do you use AI as your therapist? Yes/No and Share your story. Is it because therapy is too expensive? I don’t trust it with my data? Does it work better with your schedule?
⛑️World First Aid Day (September 13th): ⛑️
Poll idea: Have you ever wished you were trained or have you had first aid training? Yes/No, * + your story: Has anything ever happened where you needed your first aid training or wished you had been trained? Do you think First Aid Training should be taught at school?
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Things to consider for a smooth campaign:
Getting more young people involved/Increase Submissions: Share the call-out and example content coming in, back onto social media. You could even ask readers for their Social media handles to tag them. Mentioning you can still contribute if that is the case!
Increasing engagement: People might not want to be the first to share, it’s good practice to find and share some real examples to get your call-out going. If you use Contribly, use the publishing gallery to show off everything coming in.
The Why: Do not forget to share why readers should join in (i.e. we want to celebrate the young people in our community, we will be publishing the stories ‘insert where’), this is a big motivation for people to get involved.
Terms & Privacy Policy: Link clearly to Terms & Conditions and Privacy Notice at the point of submission, this must include a statement that gives you licence to publish the content (with Contribly this is easy, use the terms and conditions checkbox in your form)
GDPR: Make sure you say what you will do with their data and if you can contact them - email for example: ‘This will only be used if the journalists want to follow up to find out more. (Check box: Do you agree to be contacted by a journalist?)’ - If asking for content about someone else, don’t forget to ask if they have permission to share their nominees details.’
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Why would I want to do this?
♾️ Reader habits are built through regular engagement, they are likely to come back to see what happened to their contribution.
🫶 Readers are more loyal when they have been published on a news brand's page, and are more likely to share. 51% of people say that they would continue engaging with a brand that publishes their photo or story.
🌳 Creates Evergreen Content: Dog-related content often has a long shelf life and can be repurposed or revisited.
♥️ Builds Community: Inviting readers to share personal content like pet photos and stories fosters a sense of belonging and connection.
👯You might just get some amazing stories you would have never had access to. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
🤗 ️Using your readers photos and videos connects them with your news brand and each other! (user needs model: Connect me)
✨When you engage with readers regularly, you build up your team's capacity and this means you can create magic when big news events happen, ie. breaking news, weather disasters, or even another ‘Covid’.