Quincy Walker – Public Relations
Expecting a baby halfway through my last semester was not ideal. However, I viewed it as an opportunity to connect with other mothers and hear how they embrace being a mom while juggling whatever life throws at them. Maternal Memos is an interview podcast where mothers from different backgrounds share their personal stories and personal letters to motherhood. At the end of every episode, mothers share their own person heartfelt letters to motherhood. These letters are raw, real, and deeply personal for the mothers involved.
The Project:
I first conducted research on what makes a podcast successful, the best platforms to use, and listened to several episodes of different motherhood podcasts to get inspiration for my own. I found that keeping podcast episodes in 20-30 minutes in length is ideal, Spotify is the best podcast platform, and that motherhood podcasts are more successful when emotion and authenticity are involved.
As I started working on the name and branding for the podcast, I wanted the name and imagery of the podcast to be symbolic to what the podcast symbolizes for women. The name of the podcast, Maternal Memos, gives the listener an idea as to what the podcast is about: women writing their own heartfelt messages about what motherhood has meant to them. When creating the logo, I chose to have the stamp symbolize mothers writing their personal letters to motherhood. Pink was chosen with the intention of keeping the podcast feminine and inviting. The carnations in the logo were chosen because they are the flower that represents womanhood and motherhood.
I also created a style guide to follow when creating content for the Instagram and Spotify pages for Maternal Memos.
The content calendar that I created allowed me to stay organized and know when I was posting. It helped me to know that I had something planned for the day that was going to be posted. It was organized in a way that was clear and easy to understand.
Most of the content posted on Maternal Memos’ social media is video form content because I wanted followers and visitors to feel connected to the women sharing their stories, experiences and personal letters. I used colors that were consistent with my style guide and following this style guide made it clear for what I wanted the image, message, and tone of Maternal Memos to be when I post. With all of my posts, I’ve intentionally chosen hashtags that are popular and get the most reach for the audience that I want to attract.
When thinking about how to get more reach on the social media account for Maternal Memos, and I came to the conclusion that the most effective way to grow was to get earned media and using different hashtags that are tailored towards the audience that I wanted to target. I found that as I shared the video form content of the mothers, they shared it on their own social media channels. By these mothers sharing the video content of them from Maternal Memos, their followers are able to see what Maternal Memos is and the clear goals and missions that the podcast has.
I was very impressed with the amount of listeners that the podcast was getting, considering I haven’t been working on this project for very long. Most of the listeners were within my own circle of connections, but I know that quite a few of the listeners that I was gaining came from both Stephanie and Natalie’s use of getting earned media.
Conclusion:
During our interviews, I learned that a lot of mothers feel a weight that comes with motherhood. Mothers are intentional with the lessons they teach and how they raise their children. While working on the branding for Maternal Memos, I wanted to make sure everything that represents the brand was symbolic, strategic, and intentional. The 54 hours that I spent working on this project taught me that the colors, style, fonts, icons, images posted, videos posted and tone of the branding can really affect the viewer’s attitude, view, and feeling towards the brand. I learned that there is more than just one way to grow brand awareness and gain more listeners and followers. I learned that earned media is the most important type of media that any company can use, but it is also the most difficult to obtain. I learned that creating connections with others can build a type of trust between the brand and those who are engaged with the brand. I plan to continue the trust that I have built with those who listen to and follow Maternal Memos by producing more content and episodes with mothers from all different backgrounds and experiences. I hope that you can feel the love that these mothers have for motherhood as strongly as I do.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GQSWDaJImjaITOuhXvgLK?si=4e5fe5a15da147cc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maternal.memos/