Emphasis: Digital and Social Media
Summary: I created Instagram reels from drone footage to boost followers and increase engagement.
Content Strategy: My objective were focused more on learning than on reaching a specific increase on my Instagram. I wanted to document the process and share what I was learning. I wanted to create a variety of types of drone videos to get a surface level knowledge of the different ways to film and edit. Then post these videos to my Instagram and see what was the most popular. I eventually also wanted to create stills from the video footage, and create future posts and additional content that way. So far I only made a few posts from the video content but they preformed better than previous photo posts had.
Process: I registered my Mavik 2 Pro Drone and became a certified drone pilot. I learned how to fly from practice and watching videos. I planned out where I wanted to fly and what I wanted the end result to look like. Then I would then record my flights and check I got all the shots I wanted for that day. I would later edit into reels. They were then posted to my photography Instagram account (@kaylee.lamae.photography). I responded promptly to comments. I used a mix of relevant hashtags and trending sounds to increase my reach. For some of my nature reels I used soothing instrumental music, and that was widely popular.
Outcomes: The weather had a huge impact on the amount of reels I was able to make, since it heavily limited the time I was able to fly and capture usable footage. This led to me making more reels that were focused on drone footage and less on the process and what I was learning. Despite various obstacles I was able to create 14 reels totaling over 10 minutes of content of many different subjects for my account. These were the top 3 viewed and liked reels.
Top Preforming Reels:
Analytics: My top 3 posts were of a variety of subjects and 2 of them used slow, soft, instrumental music. They were all different lengths and had no similar hashtags other than #dronevideography The reels shown above had 3-4 times the number of interactions of all the other reels I made for this project. It would be interesting to create more reels of these same subjects and see how they compare, to see if it is the subject matter that is most interesting or something else.
Conclusion: Videos that were slow and soothing seemed to appeal to my current audience the most. If I were to do it over again, I would focus on making more videos and make more of them 15-30 seconds, instead of some of the longer ones that I made. I would also choose to do this project in a semester other than winter in Rexburg.
The weather created many unique challenges for meeting personal deadlines as it was often not good weather for flying due to the wind, extreme temperatures and snow/rain. I learned a great new skill that helped elevate my photography skills and is a skill I enjoy doing and will continue to improve.