Post 3: Devise a social media strategy that explains how you can engage your audience.

Instagram account link: @toolsforchange

For this production report during weeks 6 and 7, our team has developed a social media strategy to reach out to our target audience (young people aged 16-30, with or without mental health issues). Our intent is to post regularly on our Instagram account ‘Tools for Change’. We would like to open up a conversation about mental health and underlying social issues affecting young people. Given that how individuals use social media is more critical than time spent online in regards to mental health (Berryman et. al, 2018), we would like to make social media a space where tools are accessible for young people. Our posts each week take into consideration the Sensis findings and use them as a basis for discussion. To prototype this, we have created 4 carousel posts on the topic of self care, using the design resource Canva. The strategy for these posts looks like this:

Week 1

1. What is Self-Care?
2. Tips on how to incorporate self-care into your life
3. When should you practice self-care
4. Self-care activities that are beneficial to your own wellbeing

In addition, we have made an introductory “Meet the Team” post that includes a small description about each team member’s interest in this topic. This aims to create a sense of community on the page and establish a relationship with our followers. We intend to engage our audience by creating concise, informative posts that offer support to those with mental health issues. By giving the posts a consistent look and feel, are creating a strong brand image. We would also like to increase engagement with our posts by following, liking and commenting on similar accounts, replying to comments, sharing IG stories and monitoring insights from our previous posts. We have not run into any significant issues during the production process, however, I have learnt that having design skills can be a useful asset when producing content for social media and this is an area I would like to improve on in the future.

References:

• Berryman, C., Ferguson, C.J. & Negy, C., 2018, Social Media Use and Mental Health among Young Adults, Psychiatr Q 89, p. 307–314, viewed 20/4/21, <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11126-017-9535-6#citeas&gt;