“Coming into this course, I thought I had a good basis of understanding as to how audiences and people interact on social media. Turns out I didn’t. I knew how my immediate circle interacted with blogs and content through social, but we were not the norm. I knew I wanted to learn different marketing strategies I could bring to an internship or job position, learn how to navigate a WordPress site for my own personal knowledge, and just try and soak up as much information I could. I had also wanted to start a blog for some time, because I needed a place to put my thoughts, and I thought this was a much better approach to starting one than just winging it and hoping for the best, so I made fashion my main focus.
STRENGTHS:
- I pride myself in knowing a lot more than the average human about the fashion industry, so this was strength.
- As shown on a previous slide, my site is clean, easy to navigate, and simple to use.
- I like to think I have a non-authoritative, approachable writing style which makes it easier to gain an authentic following.
WEAKNESSES:
- I really hate self-promo, like really hate it. I am calm and reserved. I am extremely introverted and loathe being the center of attention. Navigating the beginning of this campaign was difficult and I couldn’t seem to break out of my shell as the campaign progressed. I think other students were able to make self promotion personal and adapt it for their personalities, but I don’t think I quite grasped it.
- Not being an authoritative figure in fashion, it’s difficult to find a footing. I didn’t want to be just another fashion blog.
- I don’t love social media, I think it’s tricky for mental health purposes, so navigating that portion of the class was difficult as well. I think I got the hang of it when I remembered to schedule my posts.
- I am not as connected to the Belmont community this year as opposed to previous years which made promoting more difficult. Since coming back from study abroad, my immediate circle is smaller, and I am focused on more outside of campus culture.
OPPORTUNITIES:
- Nashville has such a great emerging fashion community I was excited to try and tap into.
- Another opportunity I was looking at was third party “referrals”. Getting my immediate friends and families to engage enough that they would share with their circles.
THREATS:
- I’m just another fashion blog in a billion dollar industry.
- There were quite a few other students creating fashion blogs for this project, so differentiating myself from them was a threat.
I want to highlight three peaks in my project performance which represent my three best performing posts (shown below). The first peak was on October 8th when I posted my insight into the recent Celine Paris artistic director turnover as well as a comparison with the recent Burberry shift. The second peak was on October 22nd when I posted my Harry Styles style feature. I new this one was going to be a crowd favorite, so I positioned it at the beginning of the week to help drive traffic over that full week of posts. Lastly, the third peak was recent, on November 26th. As well as having a must-see list for the Nashville Christmas season, I placed a heavy emphasis on social media as a final push to get email subscribers. It worked, I jumped almost 40 subscribers in that 24 hours alone.”
“In this class, I learned so much, but if I had to narrow it down to my top three takeaways, they would be:
- You actually have to participate in social media to get people to participate back. Be social on social media!
- Maintaining a predictable posting schedule gives the audience a schedule to follow. This minimizes the panicky ‘SOS I just uploaded a post’ pleas on social media that no one wants to see.
- Newsletters have to mean something in order to get people engaged. This means you can’t have a “catch-up” every single week. Give the subscribers something to make them feel special.”
– Kate McGregor, Belmont University, Fall 2018
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