For the final assessment for the Digital Marketing subject, we were assigned the task of developing a marketing strategy and supporting tactics for an existing organisation. Considering I had recently founded the UOW Visual Arts Society, Emma and I had the opportunity to not only develop a marketing plan, but implement the strategy and tactic ourselves.
The marketing plan is split into two parts: the first being the digital marketing strategy report, identifying and coordinating brand / background research, buyer personas, marketing objectives and strategy selection, ensuring all elements of the plan target the identified buyer personas.
The second part is a video presentation communicating four tactics including website development with SEO tactics, social media, a blog and a pitch for a live event.
My digital artefact’s future focus is considering the short-term future (to September 30th) of the UOW Visual Arts Society by developing the club’s online social media presence and a marketing guideline for the utility of passing it on the elected marketing manager at the end of the year.
My aim is to ensure successful change over and maintenance of a strong club brand to ensure the club’s survival past my graduation. This survival will lead to the club providing opportunity for visual arts culture to be preserved on campus.
Future focus questions:
How can I use social media platforms to recruit and engage club members?
And how can I develop a consistent social media brand that can be passed on to future executives to ensure club survival?
Background Research
My background research involved considering subject content and applying it to my DA in a marketing context. I considered Bell’s Three futures (1996) and Masini’s Reconceptualising futures (1982) by applying it to the club as a project to improve humanity in a micro sense. I then applied this: “preferable future” vision to developing buyer personas and setting SMART objectives, researching digital marketing theory via online blog, journal, and course sources.
Future Prototyping
This DA is a work in progress, going into spring semester is giving me the opportunity to continue to develop both the programming of the club as well as continue to improve the online marketing activity – working toward the SMART objectives stated in the guidelines.
Yidi’s feedback on my beta presentation linked me to an article on how to market a club. When considering the PESO model, I noticed I have already implemented a lot of the owned and shared channels, but the article also suggests channels such as influencer and public relations channels, which is something I can attempt to utilise when considering my future focused objectives (Johnson n.d).
Figure: PESO model for UOWVAS
Additionally, Sean’s feedback was to sell a brand “personality” before the service offering to encourage more sign-ups. This is great advice as it’s important I continue to develop the club’s brand voice, and experiment and analyse results in order to develop a clear guide of what the club’s identity is, and include this in the guidelines.
Through public feedback, I have identified that Instagram is our core social channel to reach our buyer personas due to the focus on visual learning and the image first, text second delivery of Instagram content (Shift 2014). Instagram has developed the most organic engagement, reach and following – hence I should continue to develop content catered for Instagram. At the same time, I have noticed that the Twitter account, which I have been posting the same content as Instagram, has been gaining no engagement or followers at all. Moving forward, I am going to develop the Twitter page to specifically target BCM students as there is such solid engagement on the platform for these students. I will begin to experiment with this targeted content and add it to the guidelines after positive results have been achieved.
Following the goals I set for myself and the feedback I received from the first part of my live-tweeting reflection, I focussed on the following for the rest of my live-tweeting sessions:
use different types of media in tweets to boost visibility and engagement eg. images, polls, gifs, links
encourage engagement by asking follow up questions in tweets
include subject content in some of my tweets to help frame my understanding of the screenings, achieving this by preparing for screenings with background research using the following schedule:
Following the feedback I received from the first part of this assessment, I looked forward to using my improved understanding of subject material through my live-tweeting to encourage my peers to continue their future focus in their own digital artefacts. Feedback from Meg also mentioned I did a good job of providing useful resources and constructive criticism, which I continued doing in these comments. Additionally, I noticed that I was able to maintain the ability to use my own experience of researching similar topics in past BCM subjects to discuss the peer’s own project. This felt rewarding as this being my final BCM subject, it proves how valuable and applicable BCM subject content is to a large range of projects.
Due to my founding presidency of the UOW Visual Arts Society – my digital artefact rapidly evolved into the management of the club’s digital marketing.
My DA’s future focus is based on the short-term future, asking two questions:
How can I use social media platforms to recruit and engage club members?
How can I develop a consistent social media brand that can be passed on to future executives to ensure club survival?
The first part of my prototyping was adjusting to the process of content creation for the club. I am now utilising what I have learned, and the mistakes I have made, to begin producing a marketing plan / guideline to pass on to future executives following my graduation at the end of the year. This marketing plan will be the final component of my DA, supported by all the clubs social platforms. The significance of this marketing plan is to ensure the club’s branding remains consistent and achievable. I want the guide to allow future executives to continue digital marketing with ease, by using the resource as a template that has already made all of the more boring, technical and logistical decisions for them. This allows them to focus on the creative, engaging side of content creation.
Live-tweeting has been a fun and unique learning experience which challenges the way I think about media consumption, the act of multitasking and how we analyse texts to discuss larger issues. Upon reflection of the first five weeks of live-tweeting, I want to start considering what I can do to develop my process and create more engaging content.
By applying the knowledge I have developed through the weekly lectures and screenings, I have begun to form a foundational understanding of how we can use media to predict the future. At last, I can put my crystal ball down.
Through the development of my own digital artefact and after viewing my peers’ pitches, it is fascinating to see the wide range of themes and topics we can predict the future of. Commenting on my peers’ pitches allowed me to draw comparisons and consider new aspects of future studies.
My proposed Digital Artefact will engage audiences as Tiktok users have a rising interest in educational videos, called “micro-learning” as the editing tools and creative freedom Tiktok provides its creators makes educational content “engaging and fun.” (Iqbal 2020) Similar content is found on YouTube, but the longer format will allow for me to dive deeper into the Paradox of Choice and tie this research together with relevant elements to my own life, as well as audiences.
I am anticipating that the advancement of communication technology as discussed in lectures will increase the issues raised by the paradox of choice, and my predictions will highlight the “technology-aided desire and technology-riven anxiety” Csicsery-Ronay identifies as a common element of science fiction film (2008).
about emma 