A regional daily is aiming to increase its student audience with the launch of a new Facebook group following an online rebrand.

Leicestershire Live, the recently renamed companion website to the Leicester Mercury, has started the group for students at its patch’s three universities – De Montfort, Leicester and Loughborough.

Stories from the Leicestershire Live site will be posted to the group, and it is also hoped that it will serve as a forum for students living in Leicester.

The group is being by Leicestershire Live assistant digital editor Katrina Chilver, herself a De Montfort graduate, and journalism students will write articles and contribute ideas for the group’s content.

Katrina, pictured, told HTFP: “In Leicester and Leicestershire we have three universities – Leicester, De Montfort and Loughborough. That’s a huge group of people who could be interested in reading our website, but might not even know we’re there for them at the moment.

“We’ve recently launched patches as part of our website rebrand to Leicestershire Live, and I’ve chosen students as mine because I really think there is more we can be doing for students in the city and county. As part of that my aim is to get more content aimed at students on our website, and in turn grow our student audience. That’s why we’ve launched the Facebook group.

“It’s early days, but we are hoping that students will start sharing the group with their friends, flatmates and coursemates, and it will grow. Hopefully it will be a place where we can really engage with students and find out what it is they want to see from us, as well as being the go to place for them to find our student stories.

“I only graduated from De Montfort University in 2015 myself, so I’m trying to use what I know about being a student here, combined with the help of current students. I’ve got a group of student journalists who are writing articles and contributing ideas to try and make sure we are in touch with what students actually want.”