Would you like insight into the topics your audience cares about? Here are reader call-out ideas for September (Part 2).
🧑🍼National Working Parents Day (USA) (September 16th):🧑🍼
Poll Ideas: Should schools adjust schedules to fit working parents, not the other way around? Do working parents get unfair advantages over non-parents at work? Are parents who work long hours neglecting their children?
Reader stories: Confessions of a Working Parent: What's the funniest/most embarrassing thing your child has ever said or done while you were on a crucial work call/meeting? (We've all been there!)
Reader Tips: Parenting Tip Exchange: What's your single best, most unconventional hack for making the working parent juggle work, and what's your biggest parenting fail that still makes you laugh?
Reader stories: Lunchbox Legends: What's the most creative (or desperate) thing you've ever packed for your child's lunchbox?
Poll Idea + story: Is "mum guilt" or "dad guilt" a real thing for you, or is it just a societal construct? What's the most absurd thing you've ever felt guilty about as a working parent? Yes/No, Share your story.
The Superpower I Didn't Know I Had: What's a skill or quality you've developed as a working parent that has surprisingly benefited your career
Creative Challenge: Let’s start a "desk decorating" contest for your kids. The best decoration desk wins XYZ.
🌍 World Clean Up Day (September 20th):🧹
Photo/Video Challenge: What steps are you taking to keep your local environment clean and beautiful? Share your stories (and photos/videos if you have them!) of your cleanup efforts, whether it's a park, a beach, or your own neighbourhood. We will vote for the best one and they can win X.
Local map call-out: What steps are you taking to keep your local environment clean and beautiful? Share photos of your cleanup efforts if you have them, whether it's a park, a beach, or your own neighbourhood.
Waste Reduction Tips: Beyond cleanups, what are your best tips for reducing waste in your daily life? We're looking for practical, actionable advice.
🧠World Alzheimer’s Day (September 21st): ♥️
Reader questions: What's a common misconception about Alzheimer's that you'd like to debunk, and what's a valuable lesson you've learned from experiencing it firsthand?
Reader experiences: The Unspoken Language of Love: Tell us about a time you communicated or connected with a loved one with Alzheimer's through something other than words – touch, music, a shared activity, or a knowing glance.
Bridging the Gap Challenge: What's been your most surprising or heartwarming way of connecting with a loved one living with Alzheimer's, especially when words fail?
The Alzheimer's Advocate Pitch: If you could tell the world one thing to better understand and support those affected by Alzheimer's, what would it be?
Creative Challenge: Let’s create a "memory jar" initiative where people share written memories.
🍂1st Day of Autumn (September 22nd): 🍂
Reader Photo competition: Show us your 1st day of Autumn leaves photos! The best photos will be featured on XYZ. (Hint: Make sure you use all your reader's photos because if someone takes the time to engage and nothing happens, they are unlikely to ever engage again!).
🇪🇺 European Day of Languages (September 26th): 🙊
Reader experiences: Calling out all 2nd/3rd generation immigrants. Did your family members make you translate/ Order the take-out over the phone as a child / Go to doctors appointments with you? Tell us your translation stories!
Reader Stories: Calling all our multilingual people, we want to hear about how you learnt another language, what was the biggest challenge?
Poll call-out: What was the hardest part of learning a language for you?
Poll call-out: Let's Pick a favourite. What is your favourite sounding European language: English, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Hungarian, Basque (Euskara), Maltese, Albanian, Welsh, Greek, Polish, Other?
✈️ World Tourism Day (September 27th): ✈️
Local Gems (Create a map): You don't always need to travel far! What are some hidden local gems or must-visit spots in your area that you'd recommend?
Photo competition: Your best holiday photos - get readers to vote for the winner.
Dream Destinations: If you could travel anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you go and why? Share your ultimate travel aspirations.
🍅 International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (September 29th): 🚮
Poll call-out: How do you check if food is off? Smell test is the best / Check the date, it's not worth the risk
Saving Food: What are your best tips and tricks for reducing food waste at home? From clever storage, to repurposing leftovers, to different recipes that work really well in a row because of their shared ingredients, share your culinary wisdom!
Food Rescue Stories: Have you ever salvaged or creatively used food that might have otherwise gone to waste? We'd love to hear your resourceful stories.
Poll Idea: What's the biggest challenge you face in reducing food waste at home? A) Storing produce correctly, B) Forgetting what's in the fridge, C) Meal planning, D) Kids not eating certain foods, E) Other (Comment below!)
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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. Mention you can still contribute if that is the case!
Increase 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.
The Why: Do not forget to share why you are creating the call-out (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?
✨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’.
♾️ 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.
♥️ Builds Community: Inviting readers to share personal content like 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)