Social Media

During my second semester of my second year, I undertook an individual project which was to run a social media campaign based on myself as a designer. The aim of this project was to try and gain as much of a social presence as I could, as this will give me more opportunities for my future and as a student. I was asked to create a LinkedIn account and a second form of a social media platform of our choice. Luckily, I already had a LinkedIn account and a design Instagram that I created during my first year of university, so I decided to continue to grow these accounts. My Instagram and Linkedin pages are accessible via my footer below.

I first started out with researching social media and how I can use it to its fullest potential as a designer and student. My first step was to understand why it is so beneficial for those in the creative and technological industries, and I discovered that using social media will allow me to connect with other users and fellow designers or even potential clients/customers. It will allow me to find other designers or design students that I can follow and engage with, and it can give me the ability to voice my brand message and deliver deeper insights into me and my mission and values.

When researching social media and which platforms to use, I came across statistics such as, 55% of consumers learn about new brands on social media, 68% of consumers agree that social media enables them to interact with brands and companies, and that there are 4.2 billion active social media users. These statistics helped me to understand the importance of having a social media presence as a designer as it will help me grow my following as well as my skills.

I did some further research into content ideas so that I could set up my content calendar much more easily and so that I will not run out of content ideas to post. Designers should be posting their design processes and progress shots such as sketches, prototypes and wireframes. This can give your followers a sense of how you approach design challenges and show attention to detail. Finished designs are valuable to post because it will show your audience your work to its fullest potential and it allows them to see your style and skills. Designers could also post inspiration shots such as sharing images, quotes, or other content that inspires designers. This can help them connect with others in the design industry and show off their aesthetic. Another type of content to post are tutorials and tips. For example, how to use a particular software or how to approach a design project. Lastly, designers could post personal touches such as images that give their followers a sense of who they are, such as a photo of their workspace or an insight into their everyday lives. According to HubSpot(2022), video and carousel posts are the most engaged with type of content on Instagram, especially when compared to single images. Both forms of content keep the users engaged for longer, and the longer a user stays interacting with your content, the longer they are engaged. Hubspot(2O22) also mentions that it is important to post at the right times. When posting on Instagram, it is important to post at a time that allows you to meet your audiences when they are online and more likely to engage with their posts.

To help me create a content calendar and to help me decide on which content to post, I undertook research into the current social media strategies that are available so that I had a better understanding on how to gain the most insights into my content.

Content Marketing Strategy: this involves creating and sharing high quality valuable content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics that are designed to educate and engage your target audience.

Influencer Marketing Strategy: this strategy involves partnering with influential people to promote your brand or products to their followers.

Social Media Advertising Strategy: this involves using social media adverts to target specific audiences and drive traffic to your website.

Community Building Strategy: this involves creating a community around your brand on social media platforms by fostering conversations, encouraging user generated content, responding to user comments/feedback.

Social Listening Strategy: this involves monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your brand, product, or competitors to gain insights into customer needs, opinions and preferences.

Once I looked through these social media strategies, I decided that conducting the 'Content Marketing Strategy' would be the best option for myself and my industry. This is because this strategy revolves around posting engaging and educational content, therefore, I can post my own design journey and processes, as well as educating fellow designers with my prototypes and tutorials.

Once I had decided on my strategy and started to focus on my posting plan, I looked into fellow designer accounts that I follow and also found while looking for more designers to follow. Analysing a couple of accounts let me gain insight into what content I should be posting, how to engage with followers or other accounts, and how to show my branding throughout my account.

My main reason for choosing Instagram as my platform is because I already had a design account that I made during first year and I had a few posts already on there. Therefore, I wanted to grow this account as I felt like I already had a good start. I also chose this platform because it has a very visual nature. Instagram is a highly visual platform which makes it the idea place to showcase talent, skills, services or products through imagery or video. This application also has a large user base, with over one billion users. This makes it a massive audience to tap into self promotion. Instagram also has a algorithm which uses its user behaviour to show content relevant to the user's interests. This makes it easier to reach a specific audience that is likely to be interested in your content. Instagram users are also highly engaged, with high levels of likes, comments and shares, creating opportunities for your content to go viral.

LinkedIn was a mandatory choice that we had to focus on for this project. It is a professional network and platform designed for professionals, making it an ideal place to showcase skills and experience, and achievements to other professionals. It allows users to post and share content that is industry specific and relevant to their profession. This can help establish you as an expert in your field and build credibility. LinkedIn's algorithm is designed to show content to users who are interested in a specific profession/industry, making it easier to reach a specific audience that’s interested in your content. It also allows users to connect with other professionals and industry leaders, making it a great place to expand your professional network and build connections. Finally, LinkedIn has a popular platform for job postings and recruitment, making it an ideal place to find job opportunities or to showcase skills to potential employers.

Before creating my own post schedule, I wanted to conduct some brief research into the best times to post on Instagram and LinkedIn. Deciding on a posting schedule was quite difficult because different sources would tell me different times which led to me changing my schedule throughout the campaign. During my research, it was recommended(according to ChatGPT) to post on Instagram between 2 and 4pm or between 7-8pm during the middle of the week. For LinkedIn, it was recommended to post during the middle of the week between 8-10am or between 12-2pm. I also found this graph(shown below) which showed me more visually, the best times to post on Instagram with the different levels of engagement.

Once I had gained an insight into the recommended posting times, I started my own content schedule on Notion, an organisation and collaborative program. I first decided on which days and times to post, which started as posting on Monday and Thursdays for both Instagram and LinkedIn. For Instagram, I started posting at either 11am or 1pm on these days, and for LinkedIn, I started posting around 5 or 6pm. My schedule started from 22nd February 2023 as I wanted to start as soon as possible to gain the most out of my campaign. My schedule started with only posting once a week on both Instagram and LinkedIn. However, it was recommended from my lecturer and a fellow designer that I messaged on Instagram(@itsvictoriastefania) that I should be posting every day or seven times a week to reach the most users. This made me adjust my schedule and planning quite a lot each week as I had to fit in more posts and make sure that I had enough content to post. After a few weeks of the campaign, I started doing my own design work with completing design briefs created by other designers on Instagram. Doing this helped me generate more content which meant I then started to post around 4-7 times a week over Easter break and so on. I also made sure that I was posting a story at least once a day to show my followers that I am active consistently. My stories often included resharing posts from other designers, behind the scenes of my projects, and small insights into university life.

In my Notion schedule below, I stopped recording which specific time of day I would post, as when I started my campaign, there was a lot of trial and error when it came to posting times as I wanted to try out different times to see the variety of engagement levels. However, after around four or five weeks, I would usually post on Instagram at either between 9-12pm or between 3-6pm as this is when I recieved the most engagement. Also, now that I have reached over 100 followers on my Instagram, I can see when my followers are most active on specific times and days of the week, which will help my posting schedule in the future for when I carry on posting content. For Linkedin, my schedule stayed the same throughout, and I would post between 5-7pm around 3 times a week on average.

Here is an insight into my Notion schedule. At the start, I found it fairly easy to schedule content because I had already thought of a number of content ideas to post from previous projects and from new ideas such as my branding guidelines or new logo designs. It was also easier because I was only posting around 1-2 times a week at the start, so I had more time to consider my schedule and content. After a few weeks when I started my own design projects, I found it quite hard to keep to a consistent schedule because I was not sure on how long certain design briefs would take me to complete. Therefore, I would often update my schedule when I knew a piece of work would be nearly completed. However, once I had started to get into a routine of completing my own design work, it was easier for me to schedule these posts as each design brief usually took the same amount of time to finish.

To increase my social media presence, I started to finalise my personal branding guidelines by choosing new colours and fonts, and making sure that this was consistent throughout my portfolio and social media. Before deciding on my branding, I researched into why having a brand identity is so important for designers. According to tbhcreative(2015), having a brand identity is crucial because it shows the visual representation of the values and personality of your brand. It sets the tone of your brand and can be used to evoke specific feelings in your audience. Developing a brand identity allows you to create a consistent message across all platforms, and each piece should have the same style and elements, creating a cohesive brand. Furthermore, tbhcreative(2015) also points out that having a brand identity helps you to differentiate your business from the competition, and developing a professional and creative identity, can help you stand out to potential customers. Lastly, having an effective brand identity can help to build customer loyalty and trust in a brand, since it allows customers to make a connection between a product and their company.

Luckily, I already had some basic brand guidelines from desinging my portfolio from last year. However, I wanted to strengthen these guidelines by adjusting the colours and designing a new logo. I decided to keep my same font choices as I feel as if they contrast well together and look professional on my website.

Personally, I wanted my branding colours to be friendly and comforting and not too vibrant or bright, as comforting and muted colours reflect myself and personality better. My previous colour choices were pastel pink and grey, however, I found that the grey was too dark and dull looking, but I wanted to keep a pastel pink colour as a part of my palette. I also considered changing my colour palette to beige and dark green, however, I did not think this colour combination reflected me as a person and I wanted to keep my colours fairly light and neutral. Therefore, I went looking for two new colours that would compliment the pastel pink. To help me find new colours, I went on websites such as Coolors.co to help me find new choices that I could choose from. As I wanted comforting colours that will compliment pastel pink, I decided that neutral shades would be the best choice. Therefore, I started researching into neutral colour palettes and came across two shades, a brown and a greige. After weighing up my options, I finalised my colour palette with these three colours.

I decided to keep the same fonts that I chose when designing my website last year. I chose my header font, 'Rozha One' because it looks elegant and professional and I want a serif font for my header text to portray the look of professionalism. For body text, I chose 'Montserrat' as this is a very common san serif font to use within design, and it looks modern and clean against the header font.

For this project, I made the decision to re-design my personal logo as I was not happy with my previous designs, and I wanted to improve my skills in Adobe Illustrator. Before starting my logo process, I looked on websites such as Pinterest to gain some creative ideas and inspiration for my design. Looking on Pinterest showed me how I could use different fonts or graphics that I could use within my design.

Once I had gained some inspiration, I started sketching my ideas with Procreate so that I could visualise my ideas. After I had seen my sketches on my iPad, I decided that my favourite sketch was the simple 'i' letter with a full stop. I thought that this minimalistic idea fit in with my minimalistic website and overall branding. I then started to illustrate this logo idea as a high fidelity logo on my iPad.

After I had finished my illustration in Procreate, I imported it into Adobe Illustrator and traced over my design with the pen tool and added my brand colours. I then added this logo to my social media platforms. I did add the logo to my portfolio too but after a while, I decided to remove it as I thought it looked slightly out of place because it did not match with my main font, 'rozha one'.

To start off the campaign, I made some changes to my Instagram and Linkedin accounts to make them look more professional and to show my branding guidelines throughout. Before, my accounts were unorganised and did not include all the relevant information about myself, so I made sure to add these extra elements too.

For week 1, I posted my new logo design to start off the campaign. I felt as if this post was a positive way to start as it represented my new branding. During the first couple weeks was when I started with only posting once a week on Instagram and Linkedin, and I had not yet set my Instagram account to a professional account.

For week 2, I posted once again on Instagram but I also started posting on my story to gain more insights. For stories, I posted an image during university, and I then reposted my course friends project post to represent community and friendliness. I also started following more accounts that post similar content to mine. I also started commenting on other designers posts, to engage with a wider audience and also reshare designers work to my story.

During this week, on Instagram I reached 44 accounts, and engaged with 12. My post for that week was the branding guidelines for my current group project, which recieved 17 likes and no comments which was not as successful as the week before. This post also gained 77 impressions and 63 account engagements, as well as 7 profile visits and 1 follow. For Linkedin, I posted an image showcasing my RSA project from last semester, with a brief description of it. This post recieved 158 impressions, 7 reactions and 1 repost.

During week 3, I started to gain a few more followers and increased my posting amount to show consistency to my account. However, for Linkedin I still decided to post mainly 1-2 times a week. Also on Linkedin, I started connecting with fellow designers from university, as well as lecturers and other connections from outside of university. I started following more companies that I have an interest in too such as Apple, Spotify and Microsoft.

On Instagram this week, I reached 128 accounts and engaged with 30. I uploaded 3 posts which included a carousel of The Book Cafe, a previous project which recieved 17 likes and 2 comments and reached 52 accounts. It engaged with 17 accounts and I revieved 6 profile visits. My second post was a portfolio update which recieved 20 likes and 4 comments, and reached 121 accounts, engaged with 22 with 131 impressions, one of my most successful posts. My final post of this week were my personal branding guidelines which recieved 17 likes and reached 53 accounts, 17 account engagements and 66 impressions. I also recieved 6 profile visits and 1 tap to my link in the bio which was my portfolio link. I shared 3 stories and my reel recieved 26 likes, 10 comments and currently 217 plays, which is my most successful post so far. On Linkedin, I posted a high fidelity mockup of my previous group project, which recieved 255 impressions and 10 reactions, which is also my most successful Linkedin post so far.

During week 4, I decided to start creating reels on Instagram, as while researching on what to post online, reels were known as one of the best ways to reach your intended audience. For my first real, I wanted to keep it fairly simple and easy, so I started with an aesthetic tour of my desk space for design work. This was a very common style of reel when I looked through reels on my design Instagram, so I thought it would be a beneficial way of putting myself out there further and reaching a new audience.

On Instagram this week, I reached 245 accounts and engaged with 27. I posted 3 times including my first reel. My first post was a look into my design essentials, which recieved 14 likes including a like from Acer themselves. This post reached 58 accounts, 15 account engagements and 66 impressions and 1 profile visit. My second post of the week was a sneek peak into my current project wireframes which recieved 14 likes and reached 122 accounts, with 15 account engagements and 131 impressions. My desk tour reel recieved 38 likes, 10 comments, 281 plays and 1 save, which is one of my most successful posts. It reached 265 accounts. I then posted 3 stories, which included my own work as well as my peers work. On linkedin, I only posted once this week of a high fidelity mockup of my previous project, Unshackled. This recieved 287 impressions and 10 reactions, a small improvement from the previous week.

During week 5, I posted my second reel which was a 'day in the life' style vlog. I chose to film this style of reel because they are very popular on Instagram and TikTok, as viewers find them relaxing and aesthetically pleasing. I also chose to film this style of reel because as a viewer of these reels myself, I find them quite motivational to have a productive day.

On Instagram this week, I reached 314 accounts and engaged with 47, which is another increase from the previous week. My reel recieved 55 likes, 174 plays and reached 160 accounts, a decrease from my last reel. I posted a first look into my logo designs for my other university project, PatientPortal, which recieved 13 likes and 37 accounts reached, with 13 engagements. However, I then archived this post as I did not like how it looked in my feed. I then posted a mockup of Unshackled, a previous project which recieved 24 likes, 4 comments and 1 save. This post reached 86 accounts with 99 impressions and 25 account engagements, along with 3 profile visits. My third post this week was a brand board I had made for another previous project of mine, The Book Cafe. This recieved 18 likes, 4 comments and 1 follow. This post reached 65 accounts with 69 impressions and 19 account engagements, and 6 profile visits. For Linkedin, I decided to post more than once this week to see what sort of engagement I would recieve. I posted a sneak peek into our current group project progress, which recieved 175 impressions with 8 reactions, I posted my colour variations of my personal logo. This is my most successful Linkedin post yet, with 500 impressions, 15 reactions and 2 comments. My third post for Linkedin this week was the brand board that I made for The Book Cafe, which gained 149 impressions and 8 reactions.

During week 6, I posted 4 times on Instagram with 1 reel and I posted 14 times on my story. For Linkedin, I posted twice this week. For my reel, I decided to film a 'what's on my iPad' video because these are very common reels to watch and are quite popular on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. This week I also started to do my own personal design work by finding fake design briefs on Instagram. I decided to do this so that my account had more of a range of content instead of just posting university projects. Taking part in these brief projects also allowed me to practice other skills other than UX or UX as the briefs I chose were branding based.

On Instagram this week, I reached 619 accounts and engaged with 53. During this week I also went from 63 followers to 72 as I started to follow smaller design accounts that are similar to mine. My reel gained 49 likes, 2 comments, 4 saves and is currently at 540 watches, an improvement from my previous reel. It reached 518 accounts too. After, I posted the designs I did for a previous university project called Unshackled. This post recieved 18 likes and reached 60 accounts, with 69 impressions, 18 account engagements, and 2 profile visits. I then posted 3 posts from my first design brief which was to design a logo and loyalty card for a coffee shop called TrueBlend. I posted my logo variations, brand board and loyalty card design in three different posts so that the content was spread across multiple days. My logos recieved 23 likes, 4 comments, 1 save with 55 accounts reached, 65 impressions and 24 account engagements. The brand board recieved 21 likes, 3 comments and 1 save, and reached 299 accounts with 23 engagements and 323 impressions. My loyalty card design post 17 likes, 2 comments and reached 144 accounts with 18 account engagements, 150 impressions and 2 profile visits. For Linkedin, I posted twice which included my TrueBlend logo and this recieved 151 impressions with 9 reactions and 4 comments. I also posted my user interface design for a previous university project, Unshackled. This recieved 98 impressions with 5 reactions and 1 repost, which is one of my least successful posts. I now have 41 connections on Linkedin, an improvement from starting with 20 at the beginning of the project. To gain connections, I started connecting with lecturers and other designers from my degree as well as other year groups, and individuals from my previous school.

During week 7, I posted five times on Instagram with one reel and I posted seven times on my story. For Linkedin, I only posted once this week as I did not have as much content to post for this platform. My reel this week was a quick, five second reel with a sound that I had seen trending on Instagram, so I thought it would be beneficial for me to use this sound too.

On Instagram this week, I reached 801 accounts and engaged with 65, an improvement from the previous week. I also gained 4 more followers, including one follow from my reel. My reel this week was not too successful, with 11 likes and 72 plays. However, after around a week of uploading this reel, it started to gain popularity and now has over 2000 views and 1000 likes! For my posts this week, they focused around my second design brief I did called The Bagel Shack(a previous brief by @briefclub). I posted 3 seperate posts which were the main logo, sub logo and then the main logo again but in the second colour variation. My first post of the week recieved 26 likes, 6 comments and reached 170 accounts, with 185 impressions and 30 account engagements. My second post recieved 24 likes with 3 comments, and reached 72 accounts, with 82 impressions and 26 accounts engaged. My final post of this week recieved 25 likes, 1 save and reached 156 accounts with 171 impressions 26 accounts engaged. For Linkedin, I posted a brand board I had made for my previous project, TrueBlend. This post recieved 107 impressions with eleven reactions. I also recieved 37 profile views this week and I now have 43 connections.

During week 8, I posted 6 times on Instagram and 18 stories. As I was regularly designing my own content, I had generated a lot of posts which made me want to post more frequently. On Linkedin, I posted 3 times as I was also posting my new content on there too.

On Instagram this week, I reached 2,580 accounts and engaged with 1,328, a massive increase due to the popularity of last weeks reel. As I had started to post more frequently this week I also went from 76 followers to 110, my largest amount of follows in a week so far. I started commenting more frequently on other user's posts that I follow, which was reciprorated on my posts too. I was also tagged in a story by a fellow designer in which you circle the scenarios that you have done before. This was a good way of networking as I found new designers to follow and gained followers from this too.

For my first post this week, I completed another design brief called Clayful Creations and posted a carousel of my finished designs. This gained 34 likes, 6 comments, 1 save and 7 profile visits. It reached 89 accounts, 113 impressions and 36 accounts engaged. I also gained 1 follower from this post. My second post was a design brief entry for a brief called Tea and Toast, a cafe. This post gained 39 likes, 6 comments, 1 save and 20 profile visits. It reached 112 accounts and 143 impressions, with 41 account engagements. My third post of the week was a branding project that I had created myself called The Matcha House. This gained 38 likes, 2 comments, 1 save and 10 profile visits. It reached 76 accounts and 92 impressions, with 40 account engagements. My fourth post was my next design brief entry for a brief called The Lagoon. Ths gained 34 likes, 8 comments, 2 saves and 2 profile visits. The post reached 99 accounts and 125 impressions with 36 account engagements. The Lagoon post also recived likes and a comment from the brief creator itself. My fifth post was my first attempt at packaging design and using mockups in Photoshop. For this, I created a high fidelity mockup of the menu design and coffee cup design for the Tea and Toast brief. This gained 26 likes, 8 comments and 7 profile visits. This post also recieved a like and comment from the creator of the brief too.(@hellotayloramy) This post reached 105 accounts, 112 impressions with 27 account engagements, as well as 2 follows. My final post of the week was my second post of the last day of the week. I decided to post twice in one day as I wanted to see what levels of engagement I would get and I was also excited to post my new content as I was generating a high level of designs to post, and I wanted to try and post them as quickly as possible. This post was for my next design brief entry called Flow. This post recieved 47 likes, 22 comments, 2 saves, 11 profile visits and 1 follow. It reached 206 accounts, 92 impressions with 56 account engagements. Week 8 was definitely my most successful week on Instagram, regarding follows, likes, comments and the number of content I posted.

On Linkedin this week, I posted my first attempt at creating a sign mockup in Photoshop. This post gained 164 impressions, 11 reactions and 1 repost. My second post was my menu mockup that I designed for Tea and Toast, which gained 95 impressions and 6 reactions, one of my least successful posts. My final post of this week was another coffee packaging mockup for a previous project I did, TrueBlend. This gained 174 impressions, 7 reactions and 7 comments. I now also have 49 connections on Linkedin. This week I was also asked by a collegue of a family member to help them design a logo for their podcast, thanks to this family member asking a number of collegues to check out my designs on Linkedin.

During week 9, I posted 4 times on Instagram and 12 stories. On Linkedin, I only posted once this week. As this week was approaching the end of semester, I was also focussing on my other projects, leading to less frequent posting on Instagram and Linkedin this week. I also decided that this will be my last week of my campaign because I have been posting for a couple months and thought that I had a good range of analytics to show.

On Instagram this week, I reached 727 accounts, engaged with 136 and gained 20 new followers. So in total, I went from 110 followers to 130. This week, one of my stories was also reposted on the account that I am completing a design brief entry for, @brand.brief. I was happy that I decided to post this story because it means that my design reached a larger audience and was noticed by new designers. Mr first post on Instagram this week was my final brief entry for @brand.brief's weekly brief, Flow. This post recieved 33 likes, 10 comments, 1 save, and 1 follow. It reached 157 accounts with 188 impressions and 36 account engagements. My second post was a packaging mockup that I designed for a previous project of mine called The Matcha House. This recieved 37 likes and 4 comments. The post reached 259 accounts and gained 277 impressions with 38 accounts engaged. My third post was my next brief entry for @brief.club's weekly brief, Club Sushi. This post gained 47 likes, 6 comments, 1 save and 1 follow. It reached 170 accounts and gained 199 impressions with 48 accounts engaged. My final post of this week was for my current design brief entry that is still in progress, called Serenity Spa and Wellness. This post gained 35 likes, 3 comments, 2 saves and 1 follow. It reached 131 accounts with 158 impressions and 38 account engagements. For my Instagram stories this week, I posted my new posts so that other designers can see them on my story as well as in their feed. I also reposted fellow designers work, so that they reach my audience too. I then started to post more 'behind the scenes' stories such as sneak peeks into my daily design work, as this shows my followers a deeper insight into my life and makes my account seem more personal.

On Linkedin, I only posted my logo design for my brief entry, Flow, a yoga studio. This post recieved 126 impressions with 8 reactions and 2 comments. I now also have 53 connections on Linkedin and I requested to join two groups called Graphic Design and UXThisWeek, but have not been accepted.

After I had finished my campaign, I looked into my final Instagram analytics to see my success. Firstly, I noticed that my followers were mainly aged between 18 and 44, and 61.7% women which strongly reflects who I follow too. I recieved a total of 937 post interactions with 732 likes, 117 comments and 17 saves. My top post gained 59 likes too. I mananged to reach a total of 1,556 account engagements and 2,354 content interactions. My reels reached the most accounts with 3,281, my posts reached 1,772 and my stories reached 95 accounts. My top post for account reach is 300 reaches, on my brand board of The Book Cafe. Finally, my profile recieved 580 profile visits and 12 external link taps to my portfolio.

During this project, it was important for me to stay on track with posting and recording my weekly analytics so that I had a range of results to show. As show above, I used Notion to create my posting schedule which was beneficial for me as I could make changes quickly. Each week, I would screenshot my weekly analytics from Instagram and Linkedin and add this information to my portfolio so that I had less of a work load when it came to the end of the project. Doing this allowed me to set more time aside for completing the design briefs. I would then also create a daily to-do list in my physical planner so that I knew what tasks needed to be completed each day.

Looking back at my campaign, I view it as a successful project that I enjoyed a lot. At first, I was not too sure about how the campaign will go because I knew that I did not have much to post and I needed to figure out a way on how to generate fresh content. It was a great learning experience as I had never put too much effort into my design accounts before this project, and I found it very rewarding once I saw results, with gaining followers and recieveing likes and comments. The project helped me understand how important it is to have a consistent social media page as a designer, because it opens many more doors to opportunities, clients and other designers.For example, I was asked to design a logo for a collegue of my mother that I connected with through Linkedin. It was also a large learning curve because there was a lot of changes needed to be made regarding aspects such as post scheduling. This is because it was difficult to know when to post at the start of the campaign as my research would tell me different timings, and I was not familiar with my audience yet.

What went well:
I stepped outside of my comfort zone and started to be care-free when it came to posting my content. I gained confidence in posting personal Instagram stories and even reels, which I thought I would have found too embarrassing to do. I managed to gain a number of Instagram followers, starting with 52 and currently at 166 followers. I started to progress well with gaining followers once I started to put my name out there more by commenting on other designers work, entering design brief contests, and resharing work to my story. I view this networking aspect as another successful part of my project because this is how I started to gain recognition with more likes, comments and followers. Throughout the project I was able to elevate my overall design and software skills such as branding and Adobe Illustrator by completing the design briefs. This allowed me to have more content on my website as well as Instagram and Linkedin, which will be engaging to anyone who looks at my portfolio. This is because the personal projects will show that I was capable of completing these alongside my university work and shows a larger range of designs. On Linkedin, I was able to go from 21 connections to 56 which I think is a successful amount to gain in the period of time I had.

Areas to Improve:
I think that posting more than four reels would have helped with my engagement on Instagram further, but after my four reels I mainly focussed on completing design briefs. I also believe that starting design briefs earlier on in the campaign would have allowed me to reach a bigger audience. Furthermore, I have noticed that I put a lot more of my time and effort into growing my Instagram over Linkedin. This was because I thoroughly enjoyed running my Instagram campaign more than Linkedin. Therefore, if I were to do this project again, I would try to put an equal amount of effort into both platforms. Additionaly, I could have posted more frequently on Linkedin to reach a larger audience as I found this fairly difficult to do. It was hard to reach a larger audience as I was not sure if I should connect with people that I did not know in real life. With Linkedin, I could have shared more work and content by other connections to gain more of an audience and more connections.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project and being able to grow my social media following. It was extremely rewarding and I am happy that it allowed me to strengthen my design skills. This project even allowed me to start getting more familiar with Photoshop and creating high fidelity mockups, something that I have always wanted to try and learn to do, due to seeing such professional mockups by other designers. I believe that learning this skill really elevated my content and feed. A few improvements could have been made, such as focussing more attention on Linkedin and using this platform to its fullest potential.

Social Media Campaign

Individual Project.

Project Overview

Social Media Research

Social Media Statistics

What Should Digital Designers be Posting?

Social Media Strategies Research

To help me create a content calendar and to help me decide on which content to post, I undertook research into the current social media strategies that are available so that I had a better understanding on how to gain the most insights into my content.

Designer Social Media Accounts & Who I am Following

Platform Choices

Posting Schedule and Research

Posting Schedule

Creating my Brand

My Branding Guidelines

Choice of Colours

Choice of Typography

Logo Design

Final Logo

Campaign Process

Accounts Before:

Accounts After:

Week 1:

22nd Feb-1st March

Week 2:

1st March-8th

Week 3:

8th March-15th

Week 4:

15th March-22nd

Week 5:

22nd March-29th

Week 6:

29th March-5th April

Week 7:

5th April-11th

Week 8:

12th April-18th

During week 8, I posted 6 times on Instagram and 18 stories. As I was regularly designing my own content, I had generated a lot of posts which made me want to post more frequently. On Linkedin, I posted 3 times as I was also posting my new content on there too.

Week 9, final week:

19th April-25th

End of Campaign Analysis and Reflection

Final Instagram Analytics

Sustainable Goal 17

Time Management