Digital & Social Media Emphasis
Project Overview
Just Add Color is a business that provides colorful, beaded necklaces that allows people to “just add color” to their everyday look and feel bright and happy and put together, with just the simple addition of these beaded necklaces. Some necklaces will be sold individually or in sets of three. The twist I proposed for this business is to have no repeating products being sold. Every week on Tuesday there will be a “launch” of new necklaces, the previous designs will be no longer for sale.
I created the necklaces myself, as well as did all the photography/video; created and designed the flat lays, posted four times a week to my feed (two reels, two photo posts), and as well as posting to my story two times a week showing “behind the scenes” snippets. I would also like to utilize the “shop” feature on Instagram to add my product to, that is how the product will be sold.
In order to track the progress of how well the Instagram and Tik Tok accounts were performing, I referred to both Instagram and Tik Tok Insights to record analytics from the week, once a week in an Excel sheet to document (which will be linked later on in the post) the growth of the social media channels as managing the social media of the business is the heart of this project.
Insights & Conclusions
In the beginning of creating content and posting to two platforms, I began with Instagram and Twitter. Instagram was reaching and engaging well to start off with, but Twitter failed to bring any engagement within the first two weeks of the project.
Reassessing where to go from there, we modified our project plan and moved over to Tik Tok. As you can see, Tik Tok has proved to have much better reach and engagement rather than what was happening on Twitter.
Making the switch to Tik Tok greatly benefited the brand, it was insightful to have that problem to solve by really reflecting on the target audience and recognizing that they most likely wouldn’t be active on Tik Tok, much less looking for this niche content there. It has confirmed the knowledge that your business does not have to be active on EVERY platform to be successful. It’s a matter of being aware and knowledgeable of your target audience and what platforms they are most likely not only going to be scrolling on but engaging on.
In addition to working through platforms and modifying original brand plans, we were able to have a more steady, consistent recording of analytics to be aware of trends as well as inconsistencies on each platform as an individual and on each platform as a comparison to one another. This was recorded on a Google sheet and updated weekly with the analytics that were from the posts that went up that week.
The conclusions that have been gathered at this end point of the project regarding performance trends can be demonstrated in two charts: one for Instagram and one for Tik Tok:
Top Engaged Tik Tok Post
This post received 65 likes, with 889 views, but received no comments or saves. I partially attributed this to using a trending audio at the time, but also was more intentional and tactical regarding what hashtags I used. Instead of using the same ones I used in the Instagram post for this same post, I modified them to fit ones that were more applicable to the Tik Tok platform. In doing this, I learned that you can’t just copy and paste the caption and hashtags you used for another platform. There is power in tailoring your caption to the platform you’re posting on. It will help increase reach and engagement when you cater your caption and content to the platform and therefore that segment of your target audience that is active on that platform versus other platforms you may be present on.
Top Engaged Instagram Post
The top engaged with Instagram post received 20 likes, 2 shares, and no comments. My conclusion as to why this one did quite a bit better as far as engagement goes, is that it was a “how-to” type of video which is very popular and engaged with on Instagram. Having a person in front of the camera presented a more human element to the brand and people want to do business with people, so that aspect of the reel made it more approachable to interact and engage with it. That being said, the type of content for reels that were produced on Instagram, regardless of the trending audio or applicable hashtags that were used, did better if I was actually in front of the camera demonstrating or showing detail of the product, rather than just the product being alone in the video.
Instagram Shop Goal
One of my objectives for this project was to research and execute launching the Instagram shop feature for the brand. Attempting to figure out how this works was a challenge as there were many different methods that an individual an go about setting up the shopping feature on Instagram. After much research and trial and error efforts to set up the feature for my shop, I submitted my shop for approval through the Meta Business Suite.
After going through the verification process multiple times, submitting different identification documents to confirm my validity and ownership of the account, the concluding findings have been that in order to have an approved shop on Instagram you must be a verified legal business, which Just Add Color is not. That being said, it was educational and informing to go through this process firsthand to know what exactly is required and necessary to have a shop be allowed for a brand on Instagram. Hopefully this information can be helpful for others who have similar questions or endeavors.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating this business and brand from the ground up was a challenge to keep consistent, especially with having to reassess and change platforms in the middle of it, however, I feel that it has given me a good understanding and experience of how to go about developing, running, and improving a brand as well as how to face and combat the inevitable challenges that will come with it.
It has helped me gain a better grasp and awareness of how the Instagram and Tik Tok platforms work, how to analyze data, and how to make informed decisions from that data to improve reach, engagement, and brand awareness.