MY TEAM
I was placed on the soical media team with TigerLily Bowden and Shanae Gaskin. Our job was to work on the social media accounts for the course including TikTok and Instagram.
MY ROLE
Each job has an assigned name so for this project I appointed myself social media executive manager. This means my role is to create content and research social media to successfully market towards potential students and draw their attention towards the fashion fast track course. I was in charge of the @uocfashionfasttrack instagram account.
GOALS
Chester is fairly small and I personally hadn’t heard of Chester University until I went to the UCAS fair and I know that my friends hadn’t either. For this reason I wanted to come up with ways for this course to have a wider reach and be presented to more potential students. There is no better way to connect with people all over the country than online as almost everyone has access to it and doesn’t require you to be closeby. Living in the digital age and being a social media course, being consistant and having a good platform is crucial to appealing to the younger generation who spend hours online daily.
KPI
These are the KPI’s - Key Point Indicators that I have identified for myself to establish my aims for this project and how I intend to achieve them.
1.Create content to be posted regularly on the uocfashionfasttrack Instagram account using the brand guidelines set out by the class of 2024 team to ensure the brand identity is consistent.
3. Contact industry mentors to film a short video answering questions about the course and their role. Speak to peers about their career goals and how the course has helped them.
2. Look into Instagram analytics to identify reach and engagement rates. Using this data, draw up a content plan to work on what needs to be improved and gain a wider audience for the course.
4. Research current social media trends and how they can be used to an advantage. Create interchangeable content for Instagram and TikTok that will bring in a wider audience and increase engagement.
RESERACH
Before doing anything, I had to research into the existing social medias. What worked, what didn’t and why. This is the foundation and from here I could develop my work to reach my aims and create content that aligns with my research.
I looked nto the studio204 TikTok account to understand the kind of content that was already posted and what was the most popular. In terms of views, the number was consistently between 300 and 500 but the like counts never reached higher than 27 which proves that people are not enjoying the content enough to interact with the posts. The last post was in November so the content is really dated since trends change almost daily no one will be looking at videos from so long ago. Being consistent is crucial to success on social media because if your followers are not viewing your content on a regular basis they will forget about you therefore decreasing engagement.
INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS
I asked Ellie Hendry who currently runs the uocfashionfasttrack account to send me the analaytics so I could understand what sort of content I need to create. The most obvious thing I saw looking through the analytics was that the engagment rate was consistently low and although people were viewing the profile they did not choose to interact in any way so I knew this was something I had to improve. A lot of non-followers would view the profile and stories but they wouldn’t follow so this is another that could be improved on.
ENGAGEMENT
As the analytics showed the most prominent thing that had to be imrpoved upon was the engagement rates, I looked into various methods of achieving that. Polls are an interactive instagram story feature that allows user to vote on anything you ask them and give their opinions. This is a very effective way to instantly boost engagement rates and appeals to Gen Z since it just takes one tap on the screen. Other interactive features on instagram stories include Q&A’s and scales which are also quick and allow the users to connect in real time.
TRENDS
Trends on social media change all the time so it is important to stay on top of them and ensure posts are current as they are more likely to be seen by more people. A trend could be anything from a filter to a sound and is an effective way to ensure your content is seen on ‘for you pages ’ increasing exposure and engagement.
An easy way to successfully incorporate trends into posts is using current sounds. These are the top 10 sounds most popular right now on TikTok so using them in our posts will help us have a wider reach and more potential students will view our content.
Even if the sound is muted and a different sound is used over the top the video still shows that you have the trending sound which means it will be put on the for you page.
Fashion brands that do limited drops and sneak peaks leading up to it are very popular amongst gen z so I wanted to find a way to do this in my work. Drip posts help to keep followers engaged as they build up excitement and ensure they don’t forget about it.
This is a post I did for launch night, without saying sttraigt away what it will be and just putting the date it stays at the forefront of viewers minds and will keep them coming back to get more information.
A fashion course should be posting fashion content so making use of events like fashion week can be very beneficial in increasing interactivity amongst viewers and having a wider reach. Using hashtags relating to the event or deisgner helps get your posts out there so more people will view it as many will be looking at content under that hashtag.
As we are graduating I wanted to create some posts with my peers explaining their future after fast track. They explained what their immediate plans were once they are finished and their future career aspirations which adds a more personal touch to the instagram allowing viewers to actually connect and see a face behind the course. It also gives followers an insight into what their future could look like and the kind of things they could do if the graduate from fast track.
Collaborations are a great way to combine audiences and increase exposure so one way we could get more people to know about the course is to work with brands. Sustainability is a major topic in the fashion industry currently so utilising this, collaborating with London store, Beyond Retro will allow the audience to shop sustainable and discover more about the fast track course. Although they do have a physical store in London, there is also an online store which means the even won’t be limited to just one area.
Along with taling to my peers I also wanted to speak to industry mentors who help students on the course. Heleen Houston has worked with this course for two years and graduated from the course herself so I think followers would be interested to hear her thoughts. These are some instagram story examples that would be posted as a highlight on uocfashionfasttrack
