Project Description

For my senior project I wanted to do a few things, I wanted to design a website, write articles for my blog, establish an online store where I could sell products, and continue to use social media to engage with my audience. I am pleased to say that I was able to do all of those things.

The Process

The first thing I did was design the website. I sketched up how I wanted it to look then began to seek some inspiration. I talked to my family and looked at other blogs to gain some additional ideas of what I could include in my website. I found some good ideas and I decided that I would have a blog page, an about the team page, an online store, and a page dedicated to helpful tips for cooking and barbecuing.

Once my website was up and ready I began to write articles for the blog. I wrote about the thoughts I have about cooking and grilling, as well as share stories, and helpful tips in the articles. The whole website has over 5,000 words of written content.

As I was writing my blog articles I was also designing stickers that could be sold in the store. I began with simple sketches and brainstormed what I thought would be fun and creative stickers. The illustrations I designed are simple, and I plan to develop more intricate stickers in the future. The website’s online store is functional, but at the moment I am not selling stickers. I plan on doing that in the future once I have settled in California and once COVID-19 settles down.

Over the course of this project, I was continuing to grow my audience on social media. The brand has an Instagram account where I have posted a few photos. The majority of the posting I did was to Instagram Stories. IG Stories is a great way to engage with other brands and accounts and other accounts can be in the loop with what we (the brand) have been up to. I had a goal of adding 1,000 followers to the Instagram account unfortunately, I fell short of that goal. I added nearly 150 followers. I see now that I should have been using stories less, and made more posts. I have learned that stories help engagement from the audience, and posts help the account get found and grow.

Something that made me feel like I was in the “Big Leagues” was when I was able to connect google analytics to my website. This was so exciting for me. I was fortunate to have Professor Jason Reeder as a mentor and a professor this semester, and thanks to his class Digital Media Analytics and Strategy I was able to receive the Advanced Google Analytics certificate from the Google Analytics Academy. When I received the certificate I was excited, but when I got to put my knowledge to use it was inspiring and exciting to have it come together.

As apart of my social media project I ran two promoted posts with the purpose of promoting the website and generating traffic to my account. The fun part about this is that I was able to measure the success of those promotions based on the data from Google Analytics.

The numbers on Google Analytics were not off the chart amazing, but the data is being collected and the connection between my website and Google Analytics is working. From the data, I will be able to continue to measure the traffic on my website and I’ll be able to make changes.

One of my key goals was to Produce High-Quality Public Content in Multiple Venues. There are three pillars of the project.

1. Audience

   Growth

   Engagement

   Demographics

   Psychographics

2. Social Media

   Instagram

   Video and Photo

   IG Stories

   Direct Messaging

3. Website

   Blog

   About the Team

   Store

   Helpful Tips

The three pillars work with one another. As one is grown and developed the others will be strengthened. They all build together to form a base that is needed for a brand or company to be successful.

Skills I have learned from my time at Brigham Young University Idaho that I used in my senior project.

• Digital Image Capture

• Image Editing

• Image Sizing

• Image Optimization for Professional Online Display

• Effective Design

• Online Blog Writing

• Identifying Key Performance Indicators

• Social Media Strategies

• Search Engine Optimization

• Google Analytics

• Content Creation

• Written Content

• Clear, Concise, Specific, and Error-Free Writing

• Design, Typography, Color

• Foundational Visual Communication Principles

• Live Self-Hosted Website

• Industry-Standard Social Media Content Creation Tools

• Ability to Create Meaningful Visual Content

• Identify Potential Market Niches

• Promotion of Social Media Posts

Allotment of Time

15 hours of brainstorming and designing website.

10 hours of brainstorming, illustrating, and designing stickers.

15 hours of writing and editing content for the website.

10 hours on social media creating content and engaging with the audience.

3 hours of preparation and recording my presentation.

3 hours writing blog post for this senior project.

Total Hours: 56

Special Thanks

Thank you to my mentor and professor Jason Reeder. I was fortunate to get to learn a lot of beneficial information from your class Digital Media Analytics and Strategy. There have been things that I learned from your class that applied directly to this project. I was able to receive the Advanced Google Analytics certificate from the Google Analytics Academy thanks to you, and I have a feeling that knowledge of Google Analytics can be very beneficial.

Of course, thanks go to my wife Kelley for the support and encouragement.

As well as my parents Bill and Jennifer, and my brothers Tom, Nate, and Matt. I could always count on them for honest and brutal feedback.