SOCIAL MEDIA MODULE
brief:
Create and regularly post your work on two social media platforms: LinkedIn and one other of your choice. You have to be able to prove that engagement has increased over your time of the project.
Growing up on the internet means that I, like most of my generation, have a strong attachment to social media. I rely on it for my news, my information, my escapism and my community. Social media has given me a platform to share my story and meet others like me. It has given me so many opportunities for work that I otherwise not have had. These include working with some of my largest clients: EasyJet, Virgin, Making Space Media, Rights on Flights, Teens in AI, Channel 4, etc. Thanks to this work, I already had a small following on LinkedIn and TikTok.
Although I have spent the last 6 years working in social media, I hadn’t actually grown my work Instagram in this time. I decided that for this project, which is where I wanted to focus my attention on.
intro:
From a young age, I have always loved learning content on platforms such as Instagram, as it is in bitsize chunks as well as typically being visually appealing. This was a massive platform for me to learn when I found out about being autistic and then ended up becoming chronically ill.
Instagram was the main place that I found where I could find out more about my conditions, and meet others like me. Accounts such as NeuroDivers, Chloe Hayden and My Life Unmasked, were a great inspiration for my project.
research:
aims & objectives:
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To increase my followers to 1,000 by the end of April
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Average a minimum of 50 likes per post
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Increase content interactions by 50% from the start to the end of the project
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Increase reach of my page by 100%
instagram:
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Create a minimum of 9 orginal posts over the course of 3 months
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Continue engaging with relevant content from my co-workers and industry experts, with at least 2 sessions a week on LinkedIn
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Share more personal experiences to balance the professionalism
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Attend at least 2 networking events in the 3 months to build more connections
linkedin:
creative journey:
Before starting this campaign, I was using the page to post my uni design work. This would typically get 15-30 likes per post and I had around 250 followers. The engagement of my content was non existent, so I knew that coming into this project I needed to create relevant and engaging content. Although I liked the aesthetics of my original Instagram, it was too rigid and structured.
Ahead of restarting the page, I made sure I was building up a personal relationship with my audiences by showing that I’m not just a “professional” or a brand, through posting personal content on my stories.
the starting block:
Figure 2.1 screen shot of my old Instagram
Figure 2.3 my deconstructed brand board
Figure 2.2 my brand board
The first part in any design project is getting the brand identity correct. For mine I created it on canva using a variety of elements which I could incoperate into my posts and webiste. On the right is my final brand board {2.2} and underneath is the deconstructed version of my board with the different elements {2.3}.
branding:
I decided to start working on a brand board based on my website design, featuring 3 central colours: dark berry pink, light cyan and a golden yellow. This was then paired with the different variations of my logo, same font as on my website and doodles to add some playful elements. As soon as I created this board, I knew that this was spot on for exactly how I wanted to brand myself.
brainstorming:
Now that I had my branding sorted, I worked out what topics I wanted my social media to cover. I broke each week down into 2 days based on my analytics: Tuesdays and Saturdays. This meant that I had some preparation time in between the days for the next post. I opened up my calendar and scheduled in each week what content/topic I was going to post, scheduling for a month and a half at a time.
Engagement is the key to success, and this is what I focused on. Creating free, quality, informational content that is relatable and users can share with the wider community, meant that I knew what I wanted to get out of this project. In order to ensure that my work is factual and truthful, I scheduled in 5-7 hours of research each week for each individual project post.
For this campaign, I wanted to explore more into my 3 key areas: artist, activist and accessiblity consultant. This led me to deciding to create 4 zones of my content as seen below:
Figure 2.4 mindmap of content ideas for my instagram
instagram algorithm
Like most other social media platforms, Instagram is tailored to you. There is a common myth that the Instagram algorithm is a singular formula but the truth is that it is made up of multiple formulas {6.3 Jillian Warren, 2019}. In fact, Instagram describes it as a "variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose. We want to make the most of people’s time, and we believe that using technology to personalize everyone’s experience is the best way to do that" {6.4 Mosseri, 2023}.
algorithms:
This means that your feed is perfectly curated for you and your interests. When you engage on a post, it tells the algorithm that you want to see more of that content or creator, which will show it higher up in your feed.
The reason why the algorithm works like this is because Instagram is wanting to keep you on the platform for as long as possible. By showing a mixture of posts including typical photos and then reels, it means that it can keep you scrolling for longer. When you mix in the messaging feature as well, you are on to a winner. Instagram is the perfect mixture of short form content from platforms such as TikTok, messaging from its sister platform messenger and creativity from platforms such as Pinterest.
linkedin algorithm
LinkedIn is the definition of quality over quantity. Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn relies on long-form written content. With no additional features such as Reels or Stories, LinkedIn is used as a professional networking tool. It’s a platform for users to learn, engage and connect. This means that its vital your content is relevant and useful to your specific audience. Instead of relying on the virality of your content, it pushes high-quality niche content {7.1 ‘How Does The LinkedIn Algorithm Work in 2023?’, 2023}.
Figure 7.2 showing optimal posting times on LinkedIn {‘How Does The LinkedIn Algorithm Work in 2023?’, 2023}
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Share your unique perspective
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Showcase your expertise
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Easy to read formats
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Encourage responses in the comment section
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Use 3 or less relevant #’s
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Incorporate relevant keywords from the topic niche
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Tag people
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Share high-quality content
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Network, network, network!
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Target your niche and audience
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Provide as much value as you can in the first 3 seconds of a post to encourage users to engage with the post
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Include personal experiences to entertain and educate
when creating for linkedin:
Once I had an understanding of the different posts that I wanted to create, I researched when there are awareness days specific to different areas of disability {8.1 ‘Disability Solutions | 2024 Disability & Diversity Calendar’, n.d.}. After looking through the list, I chose out a couple of ones that relate to my lived experiences. Any that I didn't have experience of, I marked them in my calendar to ensure that I am sharing content from those who do have the lived experiences of those conditions.
The decision of what to post when, was partly out of luck but also looking ahead to any weeks with more leverage such as neurodiversity week, which would benefit from related content being created. The idea of tapping into awareness days and celebration events, meant that my page would have a structure and also a purpose. Having a digital schedule meant that I knew exactly what I was going to post and when, which took a massive pressure off me each week knowing that I didn’t have to brainstorm post ideas.
planning:
After scheduling all of my content, I chose to kickstart the page with an introduction post {9.1: Gates 2024}. As part of this, I decided that I want my tone of voice to be very informal to be more welcoming and matching my personality (which has been continued to my website as well!). See above section for information about how I decided what to post and when. I chose to post every Tuesday afternoon as it worked out as most convenient for my schedule with lectures etc. This then got expanded to include Saturdays as well following feedback from my audience.
ello ello:
hard work pays off:
Going into this project, I had about 250 Instagram followers and my engagement was non-existant. However I now have nearly 900 followers and incredible engagement. Through hard work and countless hours researching and creating posts, I've been able to build a strong platform. But don't just take my word for it! Below is some of my insights data directly from meta business suite. The results speak for themselves:
bibliography:
1.1: Chloe Hayden
1.2: (un)Masked
Reference list
Control Your Instagram Feed | Instagram Blog (n.d.) About.instagram.com. Available at: https://about.instagram.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/control-your-instagram-feed.
Instagram May Change Your Feed, Personalizing It With an Algorithm (2016) The New York Times, 15 March. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/technology/instagram-feed.html.
Lang, K. (2018) How the Instagram Feed Works: Inside the Instagram
Algorithm. Buffer Library. Available at: https://buffer.com/library/instagram-feed-algorithm/.
Meta (n.d.) Control Your Instagram Feed | Instagram Blog. About.instagram.com. Available at: https://about.instagram.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/control-your-instagram-feed.
Norris, E. (2020) How To Personalize Your Instagram Algorithm To See More Content You Care About. Plann. Available at: https://www.plannthat.com/how-to-personalize-your-instagram-algorithm-to-see-more-content-you-care-about/#:~:text=Turn%20on%20post%20notifications. [Accessed 12 May 2024].
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"Create a minimum of 9 original posts over the course of 3 months"
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Managed to create 12 original posts alongside reposts & comments
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"Continue engaging with relevant content from my co-workers and industry experts, with at least 2 sessions a week on LinkedIn"
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Whilst I didn't quite manage 2 sessions a week on LinkedIn, when I did spend time on it, I managed to connect with more industry professionals which included being reached out to by 2 new prospective clients.
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"Share more personal experiences to balance the professionalism"
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Within the 12 posts, I shared multiple personal experiences including "temporarily abled", a post about different perceptions of disability. With another post titled "Missed jokes. Forcing eye contact" which I wrote about my experiences of growing up undiagnosed autistic.
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"Attend at least 2 networking events in the 3 months to build more connections"
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I managed to attend 1 in person networking session for my work with Rights on Flights, and then multiple online networking sessions where I featured on different talk pannels.
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linkedin:
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"To increase my followers to 1,000 by the end of April"
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Unfortunately, I didn't manage to meet this target, but I did come close with 900 followers
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"Average a minimum of 50 likes per post"
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Currently averaging 100 likes per post, so this goal is most definitely met!
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"Increase content interactions by 50% from the start to the end of the project"
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Managed to increase interactions by 170% from start to end of project
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"Increase reach of my page by 100%"
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Increased the reach by 126.2%!
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instagram:
success?
Have I met my aims and objectives of this project (as set out above)?
Throughout my journey with this project, I have been able to strengthen my skills and identify exactly what content my audiences want. Thanks to this project, I have truly found my niche of educational but approachable content. This means that I deliver posts centred around one topic (typically relating to accessibility or design) but in an informal format.
Among this work, I also included some collaborative posts with my companies work at Rights On Flights, which included a post with Sophie Morgan, a loose women presenter who is my manager and close friend. This was my top performing post by a mile. What you are probably thinking is that the success and engagement is down to this collaboration, but its actually due to my hard work finally paying off and a carefully planned out strategy.
As set out in the brief, for this project you are required to link it to the SDG 17, partnerships for the goals. "The Global Goals can only be met if we work together. International investments and support is needed to ensure innovative technological development, fair trade and market access, especially for developing countries" {11.1 Global Goals and United Nations}.
Part of this goal relates to knowledge sharing and co-operation for access to innovation/technology. In order to link this goal to my project, I have interpreted the goal being met by the sharing of my knowledge, research and experiences with others in order to better society by educating those around me. Whilst most of my work is on a local scale, I am also doing work nationally and internationally with some of this work being in developing countries through my work with Teens in AI {11.2 Gates}. I am honoured to be able to hold such an engaged platform and to truly inspire those who follow me into realising that life doesn't end when you become disabled or go through trauma.
SDG 17:
As with any project, there were some great parts as seen above and there were also ALOT of learning curves! One of the main things I struggled with during this unit is the workload. This was down to how much research and detail I went into for my Instagram posts. However, I'm really glad I did as the results are incredible! This struggle was amplified by my unpredictable health and personal situations happening alongside. As a result, I wasn't able to post as much as I would have liked to towards the end on LinkedIn.
This has by far been my favourite project so far of this degree. I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to “let my hair down” on social media and showcase different aspects of my life that I didn’t have a platform to share previously. Thanks to my hard work on this project, alongside my other work, I have been nominated for 2 separate national awards: national diversity awards and the disability power 100 list. It has been so rewarding seeing the work I am doing making an impact far beyond my local community. I have been able to teach all of my friends (especially with my non-disabled friends) about different elements of the disability community and be able to signpost them to content when I don’t have the spoons to explain (see Instagram for what spoons are!). See the icons below for links to my main pages, as showcased in my Link Tree where I have all of my links to my projects in one convenient place for linking to social media profiles.
swings and rounabouts:
social butterfly:
3: starting block
4: brainstorming
5: branding
creative journey
2.1 Chloe Hayden: Instagram. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/chloeshayden/
2: creators
research
2.2 Ellie Midds WeAreUnmasked. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/weareunmasked
2.3 Eliza Rain Disabled Eliza. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/disabled_eliza
2.4 Becky Ellis NeuroDivers. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/neuro_divers
2.5 Blossom Tea: Tea with HB. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/teawithhb
introduction
references:
6.1 Mosseri, A. (2023b) Instagram Ranking Explained | Instagram Blog. About.instagram.com. Available at: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/instagram-ranking-explained
6: instagram
algorithms
1: overview
6.2 Mosseri, A. (2023b) Instagram Ranking Explained | Instagram Blog. About.instagram.com. Available at: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/instagram-ranking-explained
6.3 Jillian Warren (2019) This is How The Instagram Algorithm Works in 2019. Later Blog. Available at:
6.4 Mosseri, A. (2023b) Instagram Ranking Explained | Instagram Blog. About.instagram.com. Available at: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/instagram-ranking-explained
7.1 How Does The LinkedIn Algorithm Work in 2023? (2023a) Buffer Resources. Available at:
7: linkedin
7.2 How Does The LinkedIn Algorithm Work in 2023? (2023a) Buffer Resources. Available at:
8.1 Disability Solutions | 2024 Disability & Diversity Calendar (n.d.) Disability Solutions. Available at:
https://www.disabilitytalent.org/disability-diversity-calendar-2024
8: days & dates
planning
8.2 Apple (2021) iCloud. Icloud.com. Available at: https://www.icloud.com/calendar
8.3 Apple (2021) iCloud. Icloud.com. Available at: https://www.icloud.com/calendar
9.1 The Disabled Designer (n.d.) Instagram. Www.instagram.com. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/the_disabled_designer_
9: introduction post
ello ello
10: overview
success?
11.1 Global Goals, and United Nations Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals. The Global Goals. Available at:
11: overview
SDG 17
11.2 Gates, J. (n.d.) Jet Gates on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jet-gates_inspireinclusion-inclusion-technology-activity-7165053212461355008-5pho?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
11: international work
You may be thinking that I have forgotten about LinkedIn, and truthfully I did! Going into this project I decided that rather than mass create sub-par content, I was instead going to create high-quality content but at a reduced level.
With this plan in mind, I decided to move my focus to engaging with my network's feeds. This means that I can then get my name out there in others feeds (especially for those who I look up to). As part of this strategy, I decided to continue sending connection requests to those whose backgrounds interest me. This is a surefire way to gain a strong network of those in your industry.
For my long form content, I decided to use my time on train journeys to write these posts. As I am often on trains that typically are around an hour a half each way, I figured that it would be the perfect opportunity to write these.
In terms of content, I tried to relate it to my specialism of accessible design which meant that I could use my lived experience to help educate others. Once I had the posts written and drafted up, I was able to schedule them to post during the peak times (see algorithm section).
For the small form content such as reposts and comments, I aim to spend 2 evenings or afternoons a week going through my feed to respond to everyone and keep my engagement up.