Abigail Siatkowski

As a digital producer, I approach audience engagement through a community-centered lens. I take seriously the fact that, for many people, digital platforms are their only source of news. Because of that, I use social media to present complete, independent stories, many of which are either entirely separate from other newsroom content or repurpose it in a new way.

My understanding of social media as a separate news ecosystem has also led me to leverage connections on those platforms for reporting purposes.

Scroll to see some of my audience engagement projects.

KOSU Reddit account

I started KOSU’s first Reddit account in the fall of 2024 and have since worked to grow and manage it with the help of my team. The process required identifying subreddits with lower barriers to entry, meaning newer accounts could post on them freely in order to earn “karma,” which grants an account the ability to post in larger groups. After earning enough karma to be active on some of the most relevant local subreddits — r/oklahoma and r/okc — I began to use the platform as a reporting avenue. I’ve also continued posting on subreddits with topics relevant to KOSU, replying to viewers’ questions as much as possible. We are active in 67 communities, and some of our posts have earned hundreds of thousands of views and have spurred wide-reaching discussions.

Check out the account at https://www.reddit.com/user/kosuradio/.

Instagram Collaborations

I have led KOSU’s efforts to increase visibility through collaborating with other news outlets on Instagram, most notably NPR. Previously, the station did not pursue this as an avenue to increase engagement.

I pitch collaborations as often as possible, either when another outlet is already a partner on a certain story, or if I think our work would be of interest to their audience. Below are some examples of collaborations I have organized and designed.

The post, “Oklahoma education standards say students must identify 2020 election ‘discrepancies,’” in collaboration with NPR, KGOU and StateImpact Oklahoma, earned over 2.6 million views. Nearly all (99.8%) of those viewers were not previously followers of KOSU. As a result of the post, our account gained 184 followers.

KOSU Breaking News Social Media

My first audience engagement initiative upon joining KOSU was to begin a real-time social media rollout for breaking news. I aim to publish breaking articles on social platforms as soon as they are available on KOSU’s website, distinguishing them with a “Breaking News” tag. These posts are the first place some of our audience members learn of the news.

Short-Form Video

During my time at KOSU, I have expanded our short-form video initiative, putting an emphasis on both repurposing content from KOSU stories on-air or online and pursuing stories from a video-first lens. In order to increase KOSU’s reach on short-form video platforms, I am constantly researching what types of stories resonate the most with those audiences, and how they prefer them to be presented.

For example, OKC Thunder star Alex Caruso’s “celebratory shift” at a local Raising Cane’s didn’t seem like it would engage our on-air audience, who often come to KOSU for hard news. But on social media, I’ve found there is a hunger for community engagement content. This hunch was confirmed by a public media study performed for KOSU and a handful of other stations as part of a pilot project.

Caruso, fresh off helping the Thunder to its first NBA title, is a favorite among Thunder devotees, and showing the impact of his appearance on fans struck a chord. The post accrued over 64,000 views.

During my time at KOSU, I have expanded our following on TikTok by 150%, accumulating 350,000 views.