A4 Post Two: Make the Stop
I worked to establish Make the Stop as an avenue to answer the following question:
How can social media become a more honest, open and encouraging place?
My goal was to see if I could inspire people to take a moment each day to spread positivity online. Therefore, I needed to be present daily to set the example; acting as a facilitator for acts of kindness to occur. This was the first hurdle. In order to post daily I needed to plan my content. I took some time to brainstorm the short messages I would share before going onto After Effects to create and bank a week’s worth of content. I find this system worked best however, I still needed to log in to the account each day to post. This is when I learnt about Instagram Creator Studio. Facebook offers the Creator Studio for both Facebook and Instagram; enabling creators to schedule posts as well as monitor their performance. This was useful however, whilst it allowed me to tag accounts in advance with photos, I was unable to for videos. This is one flaw of using this method however, I found it incredibly useful for tracking the performance of my posts.
To track the performance of my account, I published one video each day for a duration of nine days. I posted each video at 6pm with two exceptions when I tested a slightly later time of 8pm. What I found with this is despite posting at a regular time and using the same hashtags and tags, the engagement varied drastically. My post with the best overall performance was the following:
Whilst another post of mine had the highest reach with 942, it is evident that a high reach doesn’t equate to high engagement. As in this case, despite reaching 681 accounts, the video was viewed 95 times and liked by 13 accounts. But I am happy that people saved my post; I saw this here and there throughout the experiment. I also trialled various styles of copy with the hope that people will either share or comment on the post. This was successful once.
In another quest for engagement, I successfully published an Instagram filter. It was new and exciting learning how to operate Facebook’s Spark AR.
I am happy with how the filter turned out. I didn’t expect it to become the next viral filter as I believe it takes someone with a large following to use it in order to inspire others to do so but, I am pleased with the results.
- 64 people looked at the filter
- 28 people took videos using the filter
- 1 person shared the filter
Ultimately, whilst I hoped to grow more of a following than the 20 I acquired, knowing that I could have a positive impact on the people who did engage with my posts makes me very proud. My biggest takeaway is that social media’s ability to connect people is powerful; a ripple can become a wave. So whilst we may not always be open, honest and encouraging online, we must start somewhere. So, let’s make the stop that little bit more to transform the online scape.
A4 Post One: Putting Make the Stop into Action
Upon completing assignment two, I had accomplished creating the foundation for my Instagram page. Whereby, in consideration of my overall question for this studio (how can social media become a more honest, open and encouraging place?), I developed a mission to spread positivity across the social media scape with hope that it will challenge and adjust the way in which 13-24 year olds engage with social media. Therefore, moving forward I have begun finalising how exactly I want to achieve this by asking the following:
What will my posting schedule be and why?
In accordance with the purpose of my account, posting once per day will be necessary. The account’s operation will in some ways work to be disruptive in nature. If people are to change their ways of engaging with social media, then they need to be reminded each day in order to build such a habit. What I hope to see is people becoming so used to being prompted to complete an act of kindness, that they implement it into their time on social media without needing a prompt from the account. Thus indicating that I have successfully adjusted how someone engages with social media for the better.
What time should I post to reach my target audience?
At this stage I have not yet begun the daily posts therefore, I have not gained any insight into what time would best reach my audience. I do, however, plan to test posting at 6pm. For now I am focusing on what may work best for the Australian time zone despite my audience being the general demographic of 13-24 years old.
What do I want to communicate through my content?
As I am posting daily, I want my content to be short and to the point. The aim of this is to capture the attention of people scrolling in a short amount of time without needing their attention for too long; substantiating that an act of kindness is time efficient but has large effects.
Furthermore as I have focused my attention on Instagram for this assignment I want to ensure that I have fully considered the affordances of Instagram. This has led to my growing interest in AR. AR is becoming a staple in the lives of millenials. From Snapchat to Instagram, filters offer ‘a small piece of cultural relevance’ (Heathman 2020, para. 8). They’re trendy with big brands such as Nando’s joining in by creating a “What Nando’s spice level are you?” filter. This growing phenomenon is driven by shareability; ‘right now, it is arguably one of the most effective and efficient ways to generate hype through mass-shareability’ (Smith 2020, para. 18). Thus, I am curious to see if making a filter will assist in increasing the reach of my account.
Overall, I shall use the above to shape my final assignment. Time to go spread some positivity!
References:
Heathman, A 2020, ‘How Instagram’s AR filters became the new route to internet stardom’, Evening Standard, 23 January, viewed 11 May 2020, <https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/instagram-filters-disney-2020-resolutions-trend-where-next-a4342366.html>.
Smith, J 2020, ‘Instagram Filters: Why are they so popular and what does it mean for brands?’, The Drum, 6 February, viewed 11 May 2020, <https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/02/06/instagram-filters-why-are-they-so-popular-and-what-does-it-mean-brands>.
A2 Masterpost – Designing Make the Stop
A2 Post Four – The Strategy
Devise a social media strategy that explains how you can engage your audience.
Over the past few weeks I have planned how I can begin to answer the following question:
How can social media become a more honest, open and encouraging place?
I began by conducting preliminary research which led me to form a target audience of 13-24 year olds. I then chose for my idea to first be introduced to Instagram. Not only is my target audience ubiquitous on Instagram, but the platform is driven by visuals, engagement and shareability; all features important to answering my question. Thus, ‘Make the Stop’ was born.
‘Make the Stop’ is a mental health campaign. We all spend copious amounts of time online, often appearing okay just because we’re active. But as we scroll and scroll, we forget to stop and think how we can actually connect with what we see. That is where ‘Make the Stop’ comes into play; to encourage people to stop for a moment and use their time online to receive and reciprocate an act of kindness. My first step has been to go live with the account in order to establish what it is. Check it out here.
The next step will be to engage my audience. The following is a prototype of one type of content I will publish. I also plan to make more animations. They however, have not been published yet as I plan to publish content on a daily basis. Therefore, I must make enough content in advance to do so. It is then that I shall begin to monitor engagement with the account and posts. Therefore, my strategy in engaging my audience is to upload consistently to demonstrate that ‘Make the Stop’ is reliable and here for you.
I hope to reach many people as we can all do with some positivity. But, even making a difference in one person’s life is just as meaningful as we are all valuable.
A2 Post Three – The Platform
Propose a platform or platforms that is/are relevant to your target audience.
As I alluded to in my previous post, I’ve decided that Instagram is the right place to begin my mental health camp
aign. From this, I began to look at what my audience may already be engaging with. I found ‘The 
Good Quote’ provides useful insights. ‘The Good Quote’ is an Instagram page with 19.8m followers. Through hourly posts of quotes, they are ‘advocating for mental health and self development through literature and discussion’ (Instagram 2020). I enjoy the strategy of frequently posting as this means that every time their followers open Instagram, they will see an uplifting message. I’d like to implement a similar strategy for my account. But, what I do see with pages like this is that the experience is more an absorption of content for personal reflection than an experience that not only uplifts people, but prompts them to advocate for mental health too.
I believe that in order to answer my question I need to publish content that provides a platform for people to start conversations. I believe that this will not only uplift those viewing the content but will be a starting point for the generation of more positive content across Instagram.
After doing this research over the past few weeks, I’ve brainstormed what I’d like to make, refined my ideas by considering what I have the capability to create and have now finally begun to make them happen. My overarching idea is to make a campaign titled ‘Make the Stop’. I’ve begun making templates and drafting my character design however, I’d like to develop this further and see what comes of it. I must say that my ideas will continue to evolve as sometimes what I imagine in my head and what occurs in after effects is very different. But, as I understand what does what, I shall finalise my creations for their release.
Reference:
Instagram 2020, The Good Quote, Instagram, viewed 1 April 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/thegoodquote/?hl=en>.