Why you should cover homecomings and proms

The cover of our Sept. 27 edition of So Salem, our hyperlocal publication for Salem, Virginia.

One of the signature things we do with our community publications in Roanoke is cover high school homecomings and proms.

Our target audience isn’t the kids; it’s their moms. Our community publications focus very tightly on women with kids in the home — i.e., soccer moms. That means lots of schools coverage, lots of coverage of youth sports, from high schools down to rec leagues, and yes, it means we send photographers to high school homecomings and proms.

We have a “paparazzi” photo crew — a freelance operation — that shows up with an actual red carpet, and a backdrop with our logo. Over the years, these have become so popular that now, the schools often call us to schedule us before we get around to contacting them.

Better yet, these are some of our biggest traffic-drivers of the year online.

Here’s some examples of that coverage.

Here’s the Sept. 27 cover of SWoCo, our hyperlocal publication for Southwest Roanoke County, Virginia.

Here’s what the inside looks like. Prom coverage looks just the same, only with fancier dresses.

Yes, we always do at least four pages worth of coverage. More if we can. With still more online.