Many GlenOak students are exceedingly unaware of all going on around them. Here to end this unawareness is the staff for GlenOak High School’s student newspaper, The Eagle.

 In the past year, the staff has garnered much attention, with the views on the Eagle’s website almost doubling. 

“I think it’s definitely something to do with social media, word of mouth, and having more people on staff,” social media manager Rachel Gortney said. 

Utilizing social media has been one of the main tactics used by The Eagle in order to boost website traffic. The website has been up for 12 years, but it hasn’t always been advertised as heavily.

 “The pandemic was the first time we really sort of focused on trying to get views on it,” advider Angela Spano said. “However, we were limited in what the district was really willing to do with social media for us.” 

At the time, social media was not largely used for self promotion which made the district hesitant to endorse this. After becoming more mainstream in 2018, The Eagle finally got the green light to advertise on social platforms, beginning in fall 2019. 

With the help of its new social media presence, The Eagle has accomplished its goal to reach more audiences. Its most recent challenge is keeping those audiences. In order to combat this, Spano and her writers have attempted to identify what most engages audience interest. 

“As for stories, I think the ones that are about students and teachers are the ones that do the best,” Gortney said. 

Spano has a very similar idea. 

“Probably the ones that are of people the students really care about or issues the students really care about [are the ones that do best],” Spano said. “When you pick a topic, you have to think about how it will apply to the student body.”

Along with applying to the student body, The Eagle has also focused on reporting on issues that have real effect on the students. 

“Usually the stories that do well are the stories that do impact people or are about people but they always have that human element, interest in them,” Spano said. 

Spano has been pushing for people to go to the website, maintaining that the stories online are not any more or less significant than the stories in the printed paper. 

“Even when we passed out [printed papers] on Thursday, we want to make it clear that the stories on the web are just as important,” Spano said. 

Since 2018, the paper has accumulated 927 Instagram followers, and since September 2022, has accumulated 252 TikTok followers. Gortney continues to promote The Eagle to these audiences, while other staff writers aid in the cause by reposting and sharing stories on their personal social media accounts. 

Spano also encourages improvement through team building and positivity, while still critiquing in a fun way. 

“Today for example, we are going to celebrate our page views and critique ourselves, but we’re playing a game,” Spano said. 

With the Eagle’s rapidly growing number of views, they are aiming to continue the trend through social media advertising, and engaging audience interest whenever possible.