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Research intention
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?
Tools For Change Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/toolsforchange/
Research intention
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?
During week 11, I had time to reflect on our research to produce mental health and family resources for our account. A concept I wanted to explore in depth is how mental health is discussed online, across several social media platforms. I noticed while engaging with other accounts on Instagram that there are a vast community of accounts dedicated to posting mental health resources. Ironically, they exist alongside the influencer and beauty community which is quite large on Instagram. Users of Instagram can engage with both types of content. Age demographic could certainly be a factor with engagement as younger audiences tend to look up to influencer figures, and posts concerning mental health don’t often appear every day on the timeline unless the user is a part of the mental health community. One method of distribution of mental health posts that is often seen is posts being shared on the stories of personal accounts (especially now that mental health awareness is a concern due to the pandemic). While authoring my story and carousel posts, I kept in mind potential ways to engage this younger audience through design and copywriting choices. This is reflected in our insights, which show we met our target age demographic (16-30):
Fig 1. Our age and gender engagement. Fig 2. Our story engagement for the last 30 days, which incorporates these design elements.
My understanding of social media has also grown during week 12. Our social media strategy for this week involves distributing mental health resources for international and LGBTQIA+ students in Australia. To expand our strategy beyond Instagram, I created a linktree website page with mental health resources for those who need them, targeting young people of all ages and genders. This is accessible through our Instagram bio and is part of our initiative to improve Australia’s mental health.
Fig. 3 Tools For Change Linktree website
Overall, this marketing campaign has taught me the importance of collaboration in publishing social media work. Communication has helped the team meet deadlines, produce effective posts, and create a friendly space for work to take place. I’ve learnt that peer feedback is important in developing concepts further, as it demonstrates what does and doesn’t work within a project. The importance of branding was also reinforced for me, as illustrated by Peck in his book Think Before You Engage: 100 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign: “The avatar, your marketing message, and your general content are also a big part of how you brand yourself online. By establishing a solid and cohesive online strategy that aligns with your general marketing plan, you’ll ensure that what you do online to establish your brand matches what you’re doing offline” (Peck, 2011, p. 34). We believe our understanding of social media strategy and research-based approach has produced significant growth on our account within the last few weeks.
Fig. 4 Tools For Change follower growth. Fig 5. Tools For Change Instagram account.
References:
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?
As part of my team’s work in Week 8, we presented an informal pitch to our peers that outlines our social media strategy. Previously, we created 4 carousel posts on the topic of self care which intend to promote mental health awareness. The feedback on our pitch was helpful: one suggestion we received was to display practices of self-care in our routines through Instagram stories to incentivise people into practicing their own self-care. Taking this on board, our team conceptualised the message and overall branding for the account. We have moved toward a more gender neutral colour scheme and branding in order to speak to our diverse target audience.
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Fig. 1 Profile logo concept designs
In week 9, our team presented our research findings formally to Sensis representatives Tessa and Will. We received positive as well as constructive feedback on our work. The Sensis representatives liked that our account provides resources for international students, directs followers to a bio link and highlights the link between family and mental health. Tessa suggested incorporating our followers’ mental health stories as some content for the page and taking more of a personalised approach to the content. I responded to their feedback to create a detailed posting schedule by showing what posts are going up at what time.
Tools for Change_ Content Schedule – Posting Schedule
The schedule outlines the following topics:
Our team’s work in week 10 involved implementing this social media strategy by authoring posts on topics 1 and 2. Something I learnt while authoring content for social media through Instagram stories is that it is important to consider users who may be hearing impaired. For this reason, I included closed captioning while editing videos in Premiere Pro. This is fairly straightforward and is beneficial to our audience as it makes the content more accessible. The production and distribution of the work involved making highlight reels, cover photos, liking, commenting, following and interacting with other accounts.
Fig. 3 Tools for Change Instagram account
We were able to gather qualitative research from our audience on their experiences with social media by sending DMs to our mutual followers. The accounts @sarah_freedom_ and @coachuwellness gave us insights into how social media affects them; they replied that they were very self aware of their social media habits, and practiced self-awareness through meditation and mindfulness strategies. However, they did indicate that their social media habits are not perfect which also seems to ring true in the research conducted by Sensis.
I was able to analyse our account growth by looking at our insights using Instagram’s creator profile tools. These are our insights from the past week (Week 10). These demonstrate our audience and account reach as well as engagement with specific posts.
Fig. 4 and 5. Increased account reach and impressions- 500 impressions this week
Fig. 6 and 7. Post engagement is higher on educational posts that use a larger typeface. Our content is reaching our target age demographic (16-30), with a higher amount of women than men
In these past few weeks alone, I have been able to expand my knowledge of the processes involved in authoring social media content and collaborating with others. Moving forward, I would like to have more of Sensis’ findings inform the work that we produce and continue our research on best practices for mental health on social media.
References:
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:
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:
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:
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:
Moving forward with our research, our group endeavours to:
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.
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? What information do you hope to gather from the Sensis data?
I would like my work in this studio to be informed by my progressive knowledge of how social media operates, who uses it, and for what purpose, whether it be for personal reasons or for business. What interests me about social media is that the media landscape is always changing and with each update, the way we interact with each other becomes more complex.
It is interesting to see the younger generation gravitate towards platforms that the older generation tends not to use (Snapchat and TikTok, for example). For this reason, I would like to know how social media platforms are engaging these younger audiences. What drives social media use for each age demographic? To learn, to be entertained, to buy, consume news content, to be creative? This knowledge would be useful for running business accounts and creating content that consumers will respond to (which is especially important during a pandemic). Additionally, looking at the Black Lives Matter movement has given me an insight into how platforms like Instagram are always changing to reflect what is happening in the real world, and how it brought political conversations into the online space.
As the Sensis data suggests that social media is seen as having more of a negative than positive effect on privacy, concentration, productivity, sleeping, and patience, I would like to discover how much of an impact increased social media use is having on the mental health of its users during a pandemic. Moving forward, I would like to conduct further research with Sensis to develop a campaign that build awareness for public health (or something in this sphere) as mental health awareness is something I feel strongly about.
Post 2: What examples of social media do you find inspirational or challenging? Mention 1 or 2. Cite a reference or URL for each. Explain why they inspire you.
One advantage of social media is users’ ability to advocate for social change over several platforms. Shareability occurs, for example, on Instagram through the use of hashtags, posts, stories, reels, tags, and mentions on the platform. An example that I find inspiring is the use of Instagram to advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, in conjunction with other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube. The Black Lives Matter (or #BLM) movement gained traction online after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black Americans in the US in 2020. Millions flocked to social media to advocate for police reform in America and challenge systemic racism.
On Instagram, this was demonstrated through the posts of its users, related to protests, petitions, and updates related to the issue. Influencers and celebrities utilised their large platforms to circulate donation links that were highly shareable. Instagram was flooded with informative content that focused on dismantling racism on the platform, posted in carousels, Instagram reels, and hashtags like #blacklivesmatter.
Fig. 1, Emma Watson’s tribute to Breonna Taylor
Interestingly, the trend #blackouttuesday (which involved posting a black square to the Instagram timeline) was criticised for encouraging performative activism rather than inspiring any real change. Black communities have stated that a more effective way of showing solidarity is by donating money and sharing resources that help combat racism. This demonstrates that social media can be used to advocate for social change, regardless of its intended use. Instagram is a site where most of its users can share a curated version of their lives. Over time it has transformed into an increasingly political platform that is hosting conversations about issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement. This example of social media use inspires me because it confronted many people to make changes in their lives that challenge systemic racism.
Post 1: What is your interpretation of the term ‘social media’? What have you learned from the Sensis reports? Include 2 or 3 references from academic sources.
What constitutes social media is constantly in flux, as new technologies challenge what is possible. The rise of AI and algorithms underlying social platforms like Facebook and Instagram is changing how we interact with brands and each other. For this reason, social media can be viewed as an extension of the real world. The accessibility of smart devices and faster connection speeds has made online platforms so pervasive that we don’t even notice their presence. Additionally, the online space has become a creative playground for businesses and creators to reach new audiences.
Social media is a tool with many uses in our everyday lives. It facilitates connections with people from all over the world; it allows users to simultaneously produce and consume media; it can be used for entertainment, marketing, and so on. It fuels a massive increase in both the amount of documentation on the world and the size of the audience for it (Jurgenson, 2019 p. 34) and gives us multiple channels of influence over people.
From our discussions in class, I have been able to notice the cultural, social, and economic impact that social media has on us. The Yellow Social Media reports published by Sensis have given me several insights: Something I found interesting is that according to Sensis data, one-third of consumers inspect a brand’s social media presence before making an online purchase if they have not purchased from their website before (Sensis Top Line Findings 2020). This indicates to me that businesses’ branding on social media is more important than ever in building trust with consumers in today’s competitive market.
Sensis’ findings state that there are evenly divided views about the impact of social media on the user’s mental health, personal relationships, and on grammar and spelling. However, they also state that social media is seen as having more of a negative than positive effect on privacy, concentration, productivity, sleeping and patience. This demonstrates that there are underlying concerns of the public regarding adverse health effects associated with social media use. What I found interesting is the data on social media usage. In march 2020, Social media use has increased for 31% in the last year and decreased for 13%. 31% say they spend too much time on social media; and this is even higher among the 18-29s (49%), 30-39s (37%) and females (39%) (Sensis Top Line Findings 2020). Moving forward, I would like to know what Sensis can tell us about the impact that increased social media use has on our mental health and how it influences our relationship with the world.
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