Press Office

The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC’s communications team boosted productivity and output significantly in FY’20. In addition to responding to the needs of a rapidly-expanding administrative and research team, our team also manages internal and external communications, media relations, multimedia and website development, donor material creation, tours and outreach activities, and the institute’s broader advertising strategy. 

Highlights from FY'20:

MEDIA RELATIONS
Developed and pitched 57 articles for VT News, which resulted in coverage in 870 media outlets worldwide and 560 million unique impressions (up 12 percent from FY'19).

DIGITAL
Distributed 507 posts in FY'20 - a 29 percent increase from FY'19. These posts resulted in 878,077 impressions and content interactions. In addition, we launched a new monthly e-newsletter in Oct. 2019, which has generated 436 new contacts and sustains an average open rate of 25 percent and click through rate of eight percent.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & EVENTS
We marketed seven public lectures with stories, media outreach, and advertising, which attracted 818 community members to our campus in FY'20 prior to COVID-19. We also coordinated Virginia Tech's science outreach presence at Roanoke STEAM Day, which exposed ~300 local youth to biomedical science. We produced 107 event flyers and 30 brochures to promote science lectures, PI candidate seminars, and external events.

WEB
We custom-built three WordPress websites to support research initiative operations: International Precision Neuroscience Conference Website, Maternal Influence on Neurodevelopment Lab Website, and Neuromotor Research Clinic Website. Our website was visited by 54,000 unique users in FY'20. In FY'20, our team began redesign for the institute's website.

PHOTO & VIDEO PRODUCTION
We produced 400 photo assets and 105 video assets, which generated 1 million impressions, 44,103 views, and 4,910 engagements.