The Normal West motto for the 2016-2017 school year is “Strength in Numbers”. With this, Normal West leaders strive to include every grade in school activities using social media to connect to everyone.

Senior class president Riley Davis stated, “Since the majority of the student body uses some form of social media, the strength in numbers theme ties in really well because I wanted to run the social media outlet so more people could be involved and participate in fun events. Since everyone uses a device or phone to communicate, it makes sense to advertise via social media to get more people’s attention.”

When asked what is the goal in using social media in the school, Davis stated,  “My goal for using social media as an outlet is to advertise the events going on at West.  Also to encourage people to come to the events.  I’ve been told too many times that people don’t know what goes on at West, and I think that’s a communication issue. By informing students through social media, my goal is to have a bigger turnout at sporting events and other performances at West!”

There are many social media outlets on the internet, from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Buzzfeed, and Snapchat. West uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and soon Snapchat to communicate with the student body.

Classes, clubs, and athletics such as Journalism, girl’s swimming, girl’s track, Best Buddies, and West Pride club all use Instagram to inform students about news or upcoming events.

Sophomore Trey Austin stated, “Personally I love that we have all these Instagram pages and Twitter accounts because they post the most current school related events. Since West cut the announcements this year to save on time, it’s also nice so I don’t have to go out of my way to look at the What’s Up Wildcat board. It’s just so much simpler to stay connected through the phone.”

The Jungle on Instagram is the main page for students to follow. On this page it will post about themes for football games and information for the student section. This year the student section is a little different, in the years past it was by seniors for seniors and this year it is more for everyone in any class.

As the new school year begins at West, every class from freshman to senior is encouraged to follow school social media pages to stay as up to date as possible