Social media is a way for people to communicate and connect with one another, such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok. Here at Metea, a large variety of clubs and activities use social media to gain more members as well as broadcast their achievements.
One such activity is Metea Valley’s Cross Country team. Senior Maya Hall is in charge of its social media account at @meteaxc and emphasizes her intention to outline team members when posting.
“I try to make sure for each meet specifically, I am taking photos or videos of others on the team in order to post online later,” Hall said. “I will take these in races, or during things like warmups. I’ll also have other members of the team send me any cute photos they want posted on the team Instagram.”
Hall also mentions that the Cross Country Instagram account has regular posts that happen to showcase certain events.
“We make posts after every meet, recapping some of the highlights of that race,” Hall said. “We also include who was the winner of our spirit stick, which is something the seniors vote on to give to a teammate that had an amazing race, or that stood out specifically at that meet. We also do Senior Sunday posts, to recognize the senior class and the commitment they have given to our team over the years.”
Senior Shanai Ramos, social media coordinator of Elevate, a women’s empowerment club that has an Instagram account at @mv.elevate, adds that an important part of her job is to attract new members to the club.
“I’m very involved in bringing more people into the community,” Ramos said. “I create posts, like informational posts, encouraging and loving things, just to bring in more of the community or people in general.”
Ramos also explains that there are certain ideas that clubs use in their social media accounts in order to gain more views, followers, and attention, such as sticking to a color scheme.
“I think it’s very important for clubs to get up to date with what is going on and what people like to see,” Ramos said. “Our theme that we have is a very cute light sage green with light cute pink, and I think it is a way to intrigue people. Every little thing I do, like the colors, symbols, or little flowers in the corner are very intentional because I want to bring in more people.
Senior Abby Ruppe, as the person in charge of Best Buddies’ social media, specifically Instagram at @mvhs_bb, describes that her club uses their account as a way to remind members of their meetings.
“I do a lot of reminders of when our club meetings or activities are,” Ruppe said. “I make sure that the people who follow the account know what’s going on. Then, here and there, I post pictures of the events we have, like we just had a Halloween dance, so I posted pictures from that.”
Ruppe continues by saying that it is important to know what’s acceptable to post on social media as well as what some might not want revealed.
“If someone doesn’t feel comfortable, then I don’t put them on Instagram,” Ruppe said. “I don’t want to put them out there if they don’t want to be, but I also spread out who I put on social media so that everyone can see themselves. A lot of people like seeing themselves on social media.”
Matt Wolski, who’s the program director for Metea Theater, which can be found on Instagram at @theatermvhs and on the website meteatheater.org, states that he made the website in order to demonstrate the talents of those involved in the club.
“I was trying to figure out a way to showcase all of our kids’ hard work, because there was not really a catalog of everything in theater for what their accomplishments have been and what they’ve been able to do,” Wolski said. “The kids, captains, and officers contribute their ideas, their thoughts, and how the website should be laid out. The big thing is that parents and students need to be able to plan if they want to be a part of something and I feel like the website offers transparency with our schedule and events.”
Wolski then includes that there are some limits to what is acceptable for social media and that there are times when advisors have to be strict as well as times where they have to be lenient.
“Supervision is important, but at the same time, so is artistic freedom,” Wolski said. “We need to make sure we have access to see what content is going up, but allowing them to develop their own styles and social media campaigns, that is a tool that is useful for everybody in every walk of life.”
