Social Media
Content Creation and Strategy
Harnessing the power of social media for good.
My role in the Social Media LandscapeFor better or for worse, Social Media is one of the most powerful influences on our modern culture. As a creative producer and marketing professional, I feel it is my responsibility to contribute authentic content that educates, empowers, and inspires.
Creating with Purpose
I decide what and how I post with several goals in mind:
*For the sake of being concise, I will focus on Instagram, a key platform for converting users into real patrons, customers, and community members.
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Viral reels that utilize clean and compelling visuals, trending audio, and personal stories with relevant hooks help to grow brand awareness.
By tracking and analyzing the data insights provided for each reel, I can understand my account’s engagement, reach, and audience demographics, see what content has the strongest conversion rates, and use successful posts as templates for future content.
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By using clear messages in my posts, I’m able to understand what brought our followers to us and why. With this in mind, I create content with consistent themes that keep our audience engaged.
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It is not uncommon for social media to be the place where people get their news, make plans, discover opportunities, and learn new information. Followers should be able to keep up with an account’s key dates, developments, or opportunities through their Instagram account.
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Instagram is a critical tool for discovering potential collaborators, platforms, and other professional opportunities. I don’t just post - I engage, research, explore, and nurture relationships.
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I implement a combination of organic and paid social media to build an active community. Boosted (paid) posts, which allow you to specify the age, gender, region, and interests of the people who see your posts, are a fabulous way to build an audience on social media that can be converted into real-life patrons, customers, and fans.
SPOTLIGHT POSTS
CHECK OUT HOW I PUT MY SKILLS, VALUES, AND STRATEGY INTO ACTION FOR NED AND WENDY THE BAND.
GROWING BRAND AWARENESS
Viral reels help to grow brand awareness.
On Instagram, reels that go viral often utilize clean and compelling visuals, trending audio, and personal stories with relevant hooks. The greater the initial engagement of a reel, the better chances it has of going viral.
The first step to achieving this is to stop the scroll. Clean, bright visuals that can immediately tell viewers a story can cut through the doom scroll mentality.
Once you’ve stopped the scroll, it’s critical to provide viewers with a reason to stay. Skip rate is calculated by the percentage of viewers who scrolled away before the first 3 seconds of a reel. If you can keep viewers engaged for longer than 3 seconds, this will signal to the algorithm to keep pushing the video. By keeping the video itself brief (ideally under 30 seconds) and pairing that with a longer, narrative caption with a strong hook, you can increase the number of views per person and kickstart the reel.
It’s important to remember that virality is not the final goal. Conversion is what we’re after, so once you’ve convinced a viewer to stop scrolling and spend time with your content, you must provide them with a reason to follow your account for more similar content, and hopefully engage with your brand/organization in real life as well.
Example: To reach a larger audience with my artist account, I edited together a brief and compelling video that immediately tells the audience something about Ned and Wendy the Band - we are a married couple. I paired the video with a long caption that starts with a hook “Our first phone call was in 2019,” and goes on to tell the story of how we met, fell in love, formed a band, and moved to Portland, OR. I used the trending audio “Beyond” by Leon Bridges, a song that was not only significant to Jordan and I, but relevant to the overall message of the post - we found our “everything and beyond” and are living in a state of awe even five years after we fell in love.
This reel went viral, with over 200K views and earned us 393 new followers.
ENGAGING CURRENT AUDIENCE
Don’t dupe your new followers. Keep your content in alignment with a clear theme and aesthetic.
By adhering to a key assortment of relevant themes in every post that I make, I’m able to understand what brought our followers to us and why. With this in mind, I create content that follows these same themes and keeps our audience engaged.
Example: Unless you’ve built a very large following, it’s likely that not all content will go viral. I personally am okay with that, as long as the content that I post is regularly connecting with my established audience. In this example, I’ve tapped into similar aesthetics as the viral wedding reel (i.e. earthy colors, nature, both artists framed in a similar format,) but instead of focusing on our marriage, I’m providing an intimate peek into our home life, songwriting, and current ups and downs.
Though this reel has not gone viral, it has shown a strong engagement rate with an average watch time of 13 seconds and an active comments section, and it has served one of the main purposes of why the account exists - to share our original music with those who need to hear it.
EDUCATING FOLLOWERS
It is not uncommon for social media to be the place where people get their news, make plans, discover opportunities, and learn new information.
By providing PSA’s, important dates and events, and team member spotlights, I can keep followers informed.
Example: Ned and Wendy the Band has several key dates this summer that we want our audience to be aware of. These dates include performances, music releases, a special announcement, and the premiere of our film. To prepare our audience to engage with these events, I created a schedule in Canva, using a photo from the film that will be premiering to set the aesthetic tone for this summer’s events and releases. I made sure to post this schedule just as the summer season began and pinned it to the top of our Instagram grid for easy access.
As the summer season goes on, I will continue to post the schedule to our story, highlighting the most upcoming event, ideally with a link to reserve tickets, stream the music, or engage in another way.