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;

Post 2: Identify a specific target audience informed by an analysis of the Sensis data and propose a platform or platforms that is/are relevant to your target audience.

In this week’s production report, I will be discussing the target audience of our marketing campaign. Based on the data we have gathered, our target audience will include young people aged 16-30 and is non-gender specific. We would like to target anyone with mental health issues, and users of social media in Australia including International students. We have also been refining some survey questions for our target audience, as follows:

1. Do you feel social media has had a positive or a negative effect on your mental wellbeing in the last year? 
2. How often do you feel in control over the messages/posts that have been shown in your feed? 
3. Do you feel comfortable sharing your experiences with others on social media?
4. How much do you feel influenced by what you see on social media?
5. How effective do you feel these platforms are at providing resources for individuals to seek professional help? (Not effective, a little effective, average, very effective)

Based on the Sensis data, our group has determined that Instagram is a suitable platform to host our marketing campaign. We found that in a survey conducted through Glowfeed, the majority of 18-21 year olds (41.3%) believe that Instagram users are most prone to online bullying compared to other social media sites. Additionally, 18.7% of respondents answered Instagram in response to the question ‘Which social media platform do you believe people with mental health issues access the most? Informed by this resource, we intend to publish test posts to Instagram and measure how these are received (through likes, comments and other insight tools) on the platform. We may also potentially cross-post the same content to Facebook depending on the format and reception of each post on Instagram. 

Fig 1. Instagram account prototype

By making an Instagram account (@toolsforchange) for our group to publish our campaign content I considered the ways we could increase the reach on the platform. Based on prior knowledge of the networked quality of Instagram, I followed and interacted with accounts with similar names and goals (raising mental health awareness). Branding is also an important aspect of curating an Instagram feed and presence. We investigated the use of colour as a strategy to create consistency across posts. We will produce pictograms and charts to show data consistent with our account aesthetic, with the intent to target a young age demographic. 

References:

• Glow, 2021, Have your say on social media use in Australia, Glow, viewed 10th April 2021, <https://portal.glowfeed.com/shared-report/f17f4da1-ec50-4a22-a02e-28bb69e05562?token=300122154d0ebe13d8e9ebb6805413d5&gt;

Post 1: Pose a question that you will answer with your social media strategy and posts.

In this production report, I will be documenting the development of a series of social media examples that draw on my prior knowledge of social media, our class discussions, the Sensis Yellow Social Media reports, and research with Sensis. The question I will answer with my social media strategy and posts alongside my group is:

How can we produce a social media marketing campaign that investigates how social media affects its users, and promote mental health awareness during the pandemic?

Instagram logo on an iPhone (Photo Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

During week 4, our group brainstormed our research topic for Assessment 2. Our intention is to investigate how social media can be used to promote mental health awareness during the pandemic, and aim to decrease the negative influence that social media has on its users through the production of a marketing campaign. Our duties in week 5 involved refining our questions for Sensis for our target audience, which are as follows.

Sensis Questions:

1. What is the percentage of users accessing social media that have experienced mental health issues?
2. What percentage of posts about mental health have appeared on social media in the last year?
3. Which social media platform is mainly accessed by people with mental health issues?
4. Which age demographic is mostly negatively influenced by what they see on social media?
5. Which social group (e.g. LGBTQI+ Community, International Students) would be most targeted as part of improving Australia’s mental health?

Moving forward with our research, our group endeavours to:

1. Research how mental health is discussed online, across several social media platforms.
2. Prototype a solution by publishing test posts on Instagram.
3. Use our campaign to provide resources for those who need help from mental health professionals.

I am interested to see how I can use this partnership with Sensis to gain insight into social media use especially during these unprecedented times we are facing.