Post 2 (Assignment #4)
Making Sense of Social Media
Coming out of this assignment, the importance of social media and its impact on registered target audiences has been made abundantly clear to me. Ultimately, everything on social media is put out there to be seen, and the way businesses or companies use different platforms plays a major part in how audiences connect and respond to what they see. Having the accessibility to the SENSIS data played a major part of this understanding throughout my social strategy, as that data creates a solid foundation to the keys areas and demographic that certain platforms need to target. For example, originally my social strategy targeting those ages 18-24 was meant to be carried out through Youtube, however, due to the SENSIS data, it provided me with key information that indicated Instagram was not only more popular, but much more frequently checked in that age bracket I was targeted. It became clear how this data is so important in the online marketing world, especially at this point in time when everything is essentially online, due to the Covid-19 restrictions (the key foundation of my strategy). Evidentially, it’s clear how important this data is to businesses trying to navigate their way through such a flooded industry, and ultimately reaching their target audience. During this study, I started to realise how important it was to break down a target audience before diving right into the strategy. Working alongside the SENSIS data, analysing a narrow target audience works best, and doing less ultimately provided as doing more, in terms of reach on the given platform. This became incredibly clear to me after hearing Trevor Young speak about targeting a niche, instead of being too broad in a subject. This was a key finding of my assignment 4 as it ultimately lead me to stay true to my theme of the isolation period, one in which was new to everyone, and one that I could at least give advice on without needing credentials in regards to the guidelines offered. From there, my research ventured into understanding how audiences read social media, realising that it is an evolving piece of society that continues to offer new things. This was evident, in my strategy particularly, through the Covid-19 restrictions easing towards the end of designing Assignment 4. This created a slight limitation to my strategy as I wasn’t getting as much of a reaction from my audience as what I first got when I created assignment two, which was released right in the heart of when the isolation was announced. Looking forward, if I were to create another assignment with this same social strategy, an important factor would be how I could develop the strategy to evolve with the changing society, which I found to be the key to actively reaching a target audience. What I also noticed in A4 compared to A2 was that it is really difficult gaining a large following in a short amount of time when you decide to branch out and have a business/ idea that is not directly linked back to you or your image that is known to your friends, colleagues or acquaintances. This project has allowed me to discover that it takes time to build a connection with your target audience, where you need to be constant in your uploads, producing the best content possible and always looking for a way where your audience can have their own input. Ultimately, this project as a whole has definitely made me look at social media different, now knowing that everything businesses do on that platform is done for a calculated reason to reach their audience. Having gained this understanding, patterns have started to emerge through what i see on social media and how it relates back to my interests and previous searches. In conclusion, everything someone does on social media is marketed back to them through algorithms, the more you see the things you desire, the higher chance you are to invest in those things.
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