Tips for Getting Engaged

Bryan Murley, who writes the Innovation in College Media blog, posted a piece this morning about Dunbar's number, a way of gauging how well a media outlet is engaging its audience. Here's a quote:

Let's say you have 30 staffers on your newspaper at a campus of 10,000 students. Between them, those staffers likely “know” at most 4,500 people (assuming there is some overlap because they know each other). That leaves at least 5,500 students that they don’t know, and the potential that over half of your campus has no social connection to your media outlet.

The key to increasing relevance, then, is to find a way to get those people into your coverage, so they feel a sense of belonging.

He follows with several great tips about how a college paper can do a better job with engagement.

I think this is must reading for The Orion and other college papers. Take a look and then offer comments below.