Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: Stanford University

Title of entry: Student Spotlight on Michael Wu, '25

About this entry: Each issue, STANFORD magazine spotlights one community member via its "Who We Are" package, which combines a one-page introduction and series of quotes with a video and original photographs. The idea is to showcase the diversity of the Stanford community in terms of subject-matter interests, talents, personal background, and other attributes. The effort is handled largely in-house: The text is reported and written by a staff writer (in this case, Kali Shiloh) and edited by senior editor Jill Patton; the video is shot and produced by the alumni association's video producer, Erin Attkisson, with off-camera reporting contributed by the staff writer. We always hire the same freelance photographer—Toni Bird (also a Stanford employee).

The storytelling format is particularly useful when we choose to highlight a community member whose interests are highly visual, as was the case with sophomore Michael Wu, '25, a hip hop dancer from Canada. While the "Who We Are" videos are typically our top performing videos of the year, the Michael Wu package far exceeded our typical success rate, garnering 40,300 views through Instagram, including 390 engagements (likes and comments), with another 7,448 people reached through Facebook, including 1,211 more engagements on that platform and 1,900 through-plays. The video also garnered 1,100 unique views through YouTube. The second highest performing Who We Are video, by comparison, reached 22,000 views through Instagram.

Michael Wu himself summed up the energy around the story well when he wrote to say: "THE VIDEO AND ARTICLE ARE BOTH OUT OF THIS WORLD!"