By Massarah Mikati

Our job as journalists during election season is to get critical, useful information out to our audiences that will increase civic engagement. But how can we get readers to engage with our work? And how can we get that information to them in the most effective, helpful way?

We spoke with voter guide extraordinaires Ariel Zirulnick, previously of LAist and now with the Knight Election Hub, Brianna Lee, engagement producer for LAist, and Lisa Snowden, editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat, about building community-first voter guides. This webinar was one of our favorite conversations, covering so much ground ranging from how to plan out your voter guide that centers your community’s information needs, make it user-friendly and get it in front of your audience — no matter the scale of resources available to you. The end result? A voter guide that not only resonates with your communities, but empowers them as they hit the polls.

Here are the top takeaways from the conversation. Be sure to check out the video below for the full discussion!

• Ask your readers what they  want to know about the elections, political candidates or ballot issues, and create guides focused on their experiences and information needs (i.e. “What does a city councilmember do?”)
• Create guides for as many races and ballot issues as you can — even if you think no one is talking about them, you’d be surprised how many eyes they can get
• Don’t sleep on UX. How people will navigate the guide is just as important as the content in the guide
• Plan for the future: How can you use this information to better connect with your audience? How can you use it to track  what promises politicians make good on and which ones they don’t? 
• Know your capacity! What can you realistically do in your newsroom? How can you spread the work around?
• Think outside the box. The Baltimore Beat targeted young people to fill a specific need. What angles of the election can you own?