Post 3: How will your own work in this studio be informed by your understandings of social media, the data from the Sensis surveys and your examples of social media mentioned above?

Data from the Sensis surveys are extremely helpful in highlighting the differences in social media usage across various demographics, and will certainly be useful when deciding specifics of a social media strategy, including, but not limited to, suitable platforms to use, post timings, and posting frequency.

For instance, the Sensis report shows clearly that females use social networking sites more frequently per day as compared to males. As such, a business targeting males would post on social media less often per day, as compared to a business targeting females.

Another concept to keep in mind is that these days, traditional media is often intertwined with social media. For instance, news sites quote and cite social media sources through platforms like Twitter and Instagram (Hunsinger & Senft 2013). This is another concept to keep in mind when it comes to brainstorming viral content in relation to the previous post; viral social media marketing strategies like guerrilla marketing need not only target social media users, but can also reach further to traditional media audiences.

Besides that, when organising a social media post, it is wise to adhere to an image or layout that is easy to read or understand, and include a clear call-to-action where necessary, as shown in the Straits Times social media example. Its graphic was clean-cut and easy to read, and as a result, was concise and effective in conveying the key details, which will be more appealing to audiences.

The Sensis report also shows that 74% of people use smartphones to access social media. This is important to keep in mind when developing work for this studio, as the content produced will have to be compatible – easy to load, read, and see – with mobile devices. Reflecting upon it, this means that images should not only be compressed so as to allow for quicker loading, but also be cropped to mobile-friendly dimensions. For instance, on Instagram, from a marketing standpoint, it would be more wise to utilise a portrait orientation when posting pictures as it takes up more space on the mobile phone, thus capturing the audience’s attention more easily.

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