CULTURE CHANNEL - PART 2

I confirm that the attached assessment is all my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself and sources have been appropriately referenced.

OVERVIEW OF UNIT 9

Project 1 was quite successful. Although I wasn’t able to achieve my original plans, the reformed ones went well and I was able to produce some good content. My goal was to create a logo for my METConnect website and plan the design for the page, as well as plan the content and get a pilot article ready.

I achieved my goals of creating a logo, researching different music guide websites and getting ideas for content, writing a pilot article and planning the page design. Using Photoshop, I was able to create an effective logo for my website that I felt represented it well with my knowledge of Photoshop and photos from past music experience. Writing the pilot article was easy too as it was based on doing photoshoots and I was able to do one during the project which meant it was a great example for the article. Feedback from my peers indicated that the plans for my METConnect website (a music industry ‘How To..’ guide) were going well.

My plans did change throughout the project. Originally, I was going to write articles discussing working as a photographer and being freelance in a pandemic, but decided writing ‘How To…’ guides for careers in the music industry would be more effective and helpful to more people and attract a bigger audience. I came up with a plan for the articles - with what their focus would be, the content they would include and the week they would be released (based on covid restrictions at the time). However, a second lockdown was announced which meant I had to change the article release order around as it meant a lot of things weren’t able to go ahead when planned. As I had done a photoshoot before lockdown started, it meant I could do this article first instead of the press release one.

THE NEXT STEPS

For project 2, I will need to create my METConnect page, release the first article, research the ideas for future articles, do case studies on similar websites and what they’re doing to adapt, draft social media content for the METConnect pages, and plan the release event for the website.

RESEARCH FOR ARTICLES

Article 2 - How to edit photos on Lightroom/Photoshop

What Lightroom & Photoshop do and the differences between them
How to edit photos on them
Using & creating presets
Colour grading
Point curves

For this, I am going to do a tutorial on how I am editing the photos I took of Grace Dickinson on Lightroom & Photoshop. I know how to edit with presets, colour grading, point curves, etc, so don’t need to do any more research for this.

Article 3 - How to make a promotional video

Using clips from the Flow Forever club night in February
Using iMovie & Adobe Premiere
Adapting the formats for use in for YouTube, Instagram, IGTV, etc

I already have the clips I want to use for this video and know how to use the video editing softwares. However, I am not too sure on what formats each platform uses for videos and so when I write this article I will do some research on this beforehand.

Article 4 - How to make a press release

The process of making a press release for Ember Tree
Emailing it out to people
What to include

I have not made a press release yet, but receive them a lot and know what needs to be included. I will use ones I have been sent as research to make sure I’m not missing anything out and will research on people to send it out to. I already have my network of contacts but need to expand in areas such as radio so can do this as part of the article.

Article 5 - How to set up a BBC Introducing page

How to create a profile for a band - what you need
Updating the profile to keep it relevant
How to get noticed by BBC Introducing
Talking about other artists who have been noticed by it

I have never set up a BBC Introducing page before but have a rough idea of what is involved. However, I will need to do some research on how to make the profile stand out and what is best to include for it to be noticed by BBC Introducing. This research will be conducted before I write the article and will involve me talking to artists who have already created one and been successful with it. I will need to find artists to talk to for this article.

Article 6 - How to run an artist’s social media

Creating moodboards
Coming up with content ideas
Scheduling posts
Creating hashtag templates
Analysing analytics
How to grow your profile
What not to do

I am currently running an artist’s social media so don’t need to do much research before writing the article. I am always researching information for content ideas and growing the profile though so will include any research I have done for this in the article.

Article 7 - How to organise an interview

How to book one when you’re starting out
How to come up with questions
The interview process
How to transcribe an interview
Where to publish it
How to promote it

I have done a couple of interviews before for my own music website and so no research will need to be done for this article. I will be using previous experience to write this article.

CASE STUDIES

I conducted some case studies about other websites with a similar theme to mine (‘How To’ guides) to see what how they’re developing their content and what they’re doing to adapt to the current situation.

Music Industry How To - https://www.musicindustryhowto.com

The first one I looked at was Music Industry How To. This website has been running for years and aims to inform musicians and others either looking to go into or expand their work in the music industry. It provides guides about every aspect, from writing music to getting it streamed on services and noticed. They even have articles comparing different services and discussing what equipment is best for you to use.

Under the articles page, there’s a comment section where people have left comments thanking the website for how helpful it is and what it’s helped them to achieve.

---insert pics (lost the screenshot and can't find it)

As you can see from the screenshots above, people have thanked the website for how helpful it is. This is good for me to know as it means if I follow a similar article style, mine may also help others.

Their articles begin with an introduction about what the article is about and what you will learn from it. They’re short and get straight to the point without waffling which in turn keeps the reader engaged and keen to read on because they know what to expect instantly.

They then go on to discuss whether what they’re talking about is right for you. For example, when discussing gaining streams on Spotify, it discusses whether this is the right platform for you to focus on and what other alternatives are available and what they are best for so you can decide if you should be focusing on this specific one. This is extremely important as a lot of the people who view the site will be those who are new to the industry and maybe not so sure about what they should be focusing on. It tells you how you can work out whether this is the correct focus or find out what the right one is.

Once this is discussed, it then moves on to the point of the article - how to achieve a certain goal in the industry. This website does it by tips rather than steps, but lists them in the order you should do them. Each step has a headline of what it is followed by a couple of paragraphs about how to do it. It also has questions you should be asking yourself as you’re doing them, again to see if it’s right for you and to make sure you’re making the most out of what you’re doing. These are extremely important as it helps you learn what you’re doing better and helps people think more about what they’re actually doing.

To end the article, they give their final thoughts on the topic and what to do if you have followed the steps and feel like they haven’t worked for you. It also ends on a positive and encouraging note, explaining how things don’t always happen instantly but talking about things taking time and staying optimistic. This is especially important as it does happen in the industry and will let people know they shouldn’t give up if something doesn’t work.

They also then add a link to a similar guide they have up that they feel the reader may be interested in. This is a good way at marketing your other articles and getting the reader to engage more and stay on the website for longer. It means you can get away with promoting your articles less as just linking them in similar articles gets a lot of clicks as people will always want to read further about a certain topic.

With the pandemic, a lot of these guides aren’t currently relevant as things such as gigs aren’t able to go ahead in the same way. However, Music Industry How To has adapted to this by including advice relevant to the lockdowns and things such as livestreams. They also explain how these work as good alternatives and how you can go about achieving them.

You can read one here - https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/how-to-play-guitar-quietly-acoustic-electric/

From this, I know I need to follow a similar format for my articles. This particular website is quite successful - looking at their social media, they have over 24,000 likes on Facebook and on their About page have a list of contributors - and there’s quite a few. Following a similar format means my page will have a chance at being successful too as long as I market it well as I believe people will enjoy the content I produce.

CD Baby - https://cdbaby.com

CD Baby is an online distributor of independent music who also publishes free e-guides for independent musicians on their website. You can subscribe to their newsletter which sends you these guides & their download links regularly. Although they’re mainly a distributor, their guides are still extremely popular and useful.

These guides contain checklists for things musicians should be doing to grow their music.

Just from these 2 pages, you get a lot of information about working out a good marketing strategy and technology. There’s tables listing advantages & disadvantages as well as questions to ask yourself. It’s packed full of relevant information that is concise and easy to read. It’s ideal for readers as you can learn a lot without having to read unnecessary information and get a wider understanding of the topic with the tables.

Important sentences are also bold, which easily highlights what the key information is if you’re just skimming through the article. Again, this helps the reader a lot, especially if they’re wanting to only pick up the key parts without reading the full article.

Like How To Music Industry, CD Baby have adapted their newer guides to include information about working online and how to adapt your work to the current situation.

You can find the guides here - https://cdbaby.com/musician-guides.aspx

The tables of questions and advantages/disadvantages is a great feature I will be using in my own articles as it adds extra information that is concise but also extremely beneficial for the reader, especially if they’re new to the topic I am discussing. I may also highlight important information in bold. However, as I am already planning to break my articles up into different sections, this may not be needed.

smartistU - https://smartistu.com

I have been subscribed to smartistU’s mailing list for a year now, having originally discovered it via an advert online. It is an online resource to help artist managers & music industry professionals understand the music industry and progress their artist’s careers. It offers a few different services unlike the previous websites - training, coaching, networking, community support, business tools, industry discounts, as well as a print magazine.

As part of their training, they have a music industry blog containing hundreds of articles about building your career, including ‘How To’ ones.

Like other ‘How To’ articles, these ones start with an introduction to the topic being discussed. Depending on the nature of the article, some don’t follow the usual step-by-step instructions layout. This one - How to Draft an Artist Management Contract - doesn’t. Instead, it has subtitles for different sections in the contract and a short paragraph underneath each section explaining what this involves. It depends on how much information you need to convey in the article.

smartistU also creates a YouTube video for each ‘How To’ article. This video is linked in the middle of the article and is a great way to promote it. The videos have more detail than the articles as they can get across more information and are easier to relate to. As well as that, they can show examples of things better than pictures & captions can. Some people might find watching YouTube videos better than reading articles, especially if you are a visual learner. It’s good to have both options and it can bring in a larger audience.

You can read one here - https://smartistu.com/how-to-start-an-artist-management-company

As there are no recent ‘How To’ articles, I am unable to judge how the smartistU have adapted them to the current pandemic. However, I know the emails they have been sending out as part of the mailing list focus a lot on online events and switching what you’re doing to online - meetings, events, etc.

I may create YouTube videos to go with some of my articles as it could attract a bigger audience and help people engage more. It may be handy for tutorials for video editing as I can show screen recordings of what I am doing, rather than screenshots & labels. This is something I will consider for future articles and see if it is possible to do. smartistU’s YouTube channel is successful - they have over 5,000 subscribers and a total viewcount of 132,489. The channel has over 30 videos and each video is relevant to the content the website produces.

DESIGNING MY PAGE

For my layout, I knew I wanted a header at the top with the logo, with a bio about the website, Spotify player, the articles, and gallery somewhere on the page too.

Header

To begin with, I created my header. For this, I used Photoshop. I wanted it to be a collage like the logo and so used the same photos I used for that and created it in the same way, just in a different image size.

I began by creating a new document with the custom measurements of 8x4 at 300ppi. I cut around the pictures and laid them out on the page. Once I was happy with the layout, I added in the background and turned down the opacity so it didn’t clash too much with the pictures. I merged the layers and put everything in black & white. Once this was done, I exported it ready to add to my page.

I added the header to the page and put the logo on top. However, the header seemed too distracting and so I turned down its opacity, although this made it clash with the logo. I removed the background from the logo in Photoshop and replaced it. This worked much better and I was happy with how it looked.

I added in my name and a small bio underneath the header to introduce readers to the page and inform them of what it’s about so they have a clear idea before reading the articles. As I wasn’t launching the page for another few weeks, I added a title to announce the release date as there would be nothing else on the page until the launch.

Page Layout

On the day of the launch, I added the remaining features to the page. I began with the Spotify playlist which I had created exclusively for the page. To do this, I created a public playlist and copied the URI code for it and pasted it into the Spotify player feature on Wix. At first, I had the larger player which also shows the songs included. However, this took up too much room and so I changed it to the smaller one that just has a play button and the name of the song & artist. I put this next to my name but wasn’t happy with how it looked so moved it to below the bio and then decided it would work best under the articles.

I added in the article I had published (going for a square picture layout with the information over on the picture rather than next to it) and put the Spotify player below this. Once I was happy with that, I added in the gallery below. The gallery contains pictures used in the articles and so only has a few at the moment, but more will be added as more articles are published.

I am happy with the layout and believe it works very well. The articles are easy to find, and the Spotify player & gallery add more to the site and provide more for the reader to interact with and keep them interested in my page.

You can view 'HOW TO...Music' here - https://www.metconnect.info/how-to-music.

PLANNING FOR MY PAGE

I have already planned the next 7 articles for ‘HOW TO… Music’ and made a note of the research that will need to be done for each of these.

However, I still needed to create a content schedule for these articles. Whilst I knew I would be posting them every 2 weeks on a Thursday, it was important to note down the exact dates so I could write these down in my planner and plan when to write the content based on other events going on around the time of the releases.

I wrote these dates down in my planner and now know to start drafting the articles on the weekend after the last one has been posted so I have enough time to complete it, despite other events going on outside of the project. The pilot article will be published in December, but there is a 4 week gap to accommodate college being closed and the Christmas holidays. I felt it wouldn’t be worth posting over Christmas as there won’t be many people visiting the site or interacting with social media content that isn’t Christmas related, plus the algorithm favours this content over those few weeks.

In Project 1, Unit 9, you will find all the planning for the articles, including who will be involved, what resources I need and how long tasks will take. You can view that here - https://indyebrewer.wixsite.com/year2eventmanagement/unit-9-culture-channel.

For this project, I created a list of things to do for it.

Design my MET Connect page
Create a header for the page
Create a Spotify playlist for ‘HOW TO...Music’
Create Home & About pages for the MET Connect website
Create a brand identity kit for MET Connect
Plan social media templates for the MET Connect website and ‘HOW TO...Music’
Create hashtag templates for Instagram
Promote MET Connect and ‘HOW TO...Music’ online
Plan an online launch campaign for MET Connect

The deadline for this is Friday 11th December, and I will have all of this completed by then. Each task shouldn’t take too long - no more than a couple of days for each. I already have the pilot article for ‘HOW TO...Music’ drafted and ready to post, so just need to focus on promoting and launching MET Connect.

PROMOTING MY PAGE

The best way to promote content for your website is via social media. We have a MET Connect page on Instagram and that is what I used to promote my page.

Promoting the Launch

Before promoting any articles, I needed to focus on launching my page. The best way to do this online was to create a post and story about it. I used Canva to do this as it’s a great design website for social media posts - it’s quick & easy to use and comes with thousands of pre-made templates you can use.

I started off with the story. For this, I opened up a blank template (for an Instagram story), added the collage I use for the logo & header and made it the background. I then added the logo (the white background version) and placed this just above the centre of the page. I added a rectangle at the bottom so the text would be easily visible against the background and added ‘LAUNCHING TOMORROW’ on top (as I planned to post this the day before the launch) in a bold font coloured white to match the logo background. I changed the colour of the rectangle to the shade of green used in the logo title. I turned down the background opacity so it wasn’t the focus as it was too distracting against the logo and text. To finish, I animated the story with the ‘Pan’ animation.

Once this was finished, I exported it in a .PNG format (high quality image, best for social media posts) and AirDropped it to my phone ready to post on Instagram the following day.

Once the story template was done, I moved onto the Instagram post. I opened a blank template (for an Instagram post - a square) and added the collage as a background. Unlike the story, I put in the black & white version as it would work better with a lot of text on top. I added the logo (the white background version) in the centre and added ‘LAUNCHING THURSDAY 10/12’ underneath. I didn’t like how the text looked and felt it threw the whole design off so removed it.

I then duplicated this & removed the logo so I could ensure the background was in the same place for the information page. I copied over the bio on the page and pasted this in in a bold font and added the launch date underneath. I also added in the logo in the bottom right corner as I had planned to have this on every post I do for my page. The font was too bold so I changed it to one which wasn’t as thick and moved the logo about until I was happy with its position. I also reworded the bio as I wasn’t happy with the current one and also updated it on my page so they matched.

I experimented with adding a white rectangle under the launch date so it was more prominent on the page. In the end, I decided to remove this as I was unable to make it work on the page and just leave it for the caption. I added a white rectangle under the paragraph instead to make this easier to read, turning down the opacity slightly. I decided on keeping the logo in the bottom right corner as it looked best.

Once this was done, I exported this in a .PNG format and AirDropped it to my phone.

I drafted a caption -

LAUNCHING TOMORROW!

Swipe to read more info about ‘HOW TO...Music’, only on MET Connect.

And hashtag template for the comments -

#howtomusic #music #musicblog #musicindustry #musictutorials #tutorials #photography #photographytutorial #newblog #newmusic

And saved this in the drafts ready to post the following day.

I shared the post to my friends and encouraged them to check out the page. The post has so far reached 64 accounts, 46% of which aren’t following the page. This is good as it means my personal promotion & the hashtag templates has worked and is bringing new people to the website.

I created a highlight with the story, titling it with my page name - HOW TO...Music - and added the logo as the cover. This means anyone viewing the page can easily see the page’s personal previous content if they wish and this may encourage them to check it out on the website.

Promoting the articles

I decided to use a Canva template for my articles promotion posts. After looking through a few, I settled on this one - 'Social Media Post For Female Entrepreneurs'.

I replaced the image with the leading one for the article and changed the text to the article title ‘HOW TO...Do a photoshoot’ and ‘New Post’. I then changed the pink to the green the logo uses and replaced the ‘New Post’ text with the page logo (the collage background version). I experimented with adding ‘New Post’ in bold at the top instead, but decided against this. I then created a second page that followed a similar format but instead includes information about what the article contains. I removed the page logo as it didn’t fit anywhere, but did keep the article title on there.

The story followed a similar format. I started with a blank template for this and just copied over the relevant elements. I kept the title at the top, with the page logo to the left of it, and the MET Connect website address at the bottom - ‘READ NOW AT METCONNECT.INFO’.

I finished off by exporting both of these finished templates in a .PNG format and AirDropping them to my phone ready to post.

I drafted a caption for the post -

'How To... Do a Photoshoot’ is now LIVE over on the HOW TO...Music page.

Head over to the MET Connect website to find out more about the process behind booking a photoshoot and what is involved.

Link in bio 🌟

And hashtag template -

#howtomusic#music #musicblog#musicindustry #musictutorials#tutorials #photography#photographytutorial #newblog#newmusic

Ready to post on the day of the first article release.

On the day, I posted these just after publishing the article (when my page was ready). I also shared the new post to my friends and the MET Connect story with a ‘New Post!’ GIF on top so it was easy for people to find if they were finding out about it from the story. The post reached 58 people, 41% of which weren’t following the account, which again shows the personal promotion and hashtags are working and MET Connect is reaching new people.

You can view the MET Connect Instagram page here - https://www.instagram.com/metconnect_/.

DESIGNING THE METCONNECT HOME & ABOUT PAGES

Before launching the MET Connect website, I wanted to make sure the Home About pages were ready and presentable. As a class, we were all contributing to these pages but leaving our own pages up to the individual. We already had the launch date and the page logos on the homepage, but the About page wasn’t ready and I wanted to change the layout of the homepage.

I began with the About page. The only information it had on it was the link for the MET Connect Instagram page. The page was missing a title, bio about what MET Connect is, the Instagram logo, and our individual page logos.

I began by adding a title to the page and a small introduction about what MET Connect is -

‘METConnect is a collaborative online magazine committed to educating and informing viewers on topics such as music, sport, lifestyle and food. With METCONNECT covering various subjects, you’ll be sure to find something you enjoy.’

Once this was done, I added a Contact session with our website email so if anyone has any enquiries it’s easy for them to reach out to us.

I then moved onto the social media links. We needed social media icons and to do this I used Canva. Canva doesn’t allow you to save images with transparent backgrounds on a free plan so I used the website background colour so it would seem transparent, and changed the colour of the logos to the same purple used in the MET Connect logo. I also saved versions with black logos in case the purple ones didn’t work well. I added these to the page under the contact email and linked them to the relevant social media accounts.

The next step was to add the page logos at the bottom and link them to the right pages for quick and easy access. I experimented with putting them in a slider gallery as there were too many to put in one row. However, I felt this didn’t look right and it was difficult to crop the logos to fit the circles and so put them in individually in two rows and ordered them by the menu order.

The next page to focus on was the homepage. As the page only had the launch date and page logos, I started by adding in a gallery of photos of the contributors below the launch date as the page was quite plain. I then changed the launch date announcement to a rectangle with the text at the top and logo bottom centre as the previous one didn’t stand out too much and having the logo in the middle of the text made it confusing to read.

I then changed the order of the page logos to make it match the order of the menu (like the About page) as it made the website easier to navigate and in a better order. I also changed the positions of the logos so they were balanced, rather than having most at the top and one below in the left corner. Lastly, I changed the page background to match the header as it stood out too much against the content.

To finish off, I added the social media links to the top of the menu and made sure every page title was correct.

Once I was happy with the pages, I checked with the class to see if anyone wanted anything changed, but everyone was fine with how it was so it was finished.

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On the day of the launch, we redesigned the homepage to add in all the new content from the pages. I began by removing the launch date section and replacing this with the page logos. I made them smaller as they didn’t need to take up a lot of space.

Underneath, I added a ‘Posts’ section for the articles. I used the Wix blog feature & chose ‘Recent Posts’ to feature, rather than individual page posts in separate sections as this would be too confusing.

Under this I decided to put a section for ‘Podcasts’. I embedded the 2 published ones using the Spotify player & a separate embed section for the Mixcloud one.

Under this went the ‘Videos’ section. As only 2 pages need videos, I put 2 players next to each other. One video was ready so this was added & the link to the page it was for was put underneath, but one video is still waiting to be uploaded but we have left the player there ready.

‘TikToks’ went next. There is only room for 3 TikToks to be displayed on this feature, so I embedded the 3 most recent ones and we will change out the featured ones every time a new one is posted.

Underneath this I added a ‘Gallery’ section in and moved the one that was already on the homepage here.

As we decided to only have an Instagram and TikTok, I removed the Facebook & Twitter logos from the menus & About page.

I consulted with the class to see if anyone wanted to change anything. We decided the background colour needed to be changed, and after experimenting with different colours and shades, we settled for a pastel purple.

Once this was finished, I checked to see if there was anything else to change but everyone was happy with the final result so we left it how it was.

You can view the Home page & About page here - https://www.metconnect.info / https://www.metconnect.info/about-us.

PROMOTING THE METCONNECT WEBSITE

Target Audience

Our target audience is people interested in learning about new topics and finding inspiration for careers. We have pages which include detailed tutorials, interesting podcasts and helpful articles for topics such as music, sport and lifestyle. As the content contributors are all young people, our audience is best suited to between the ages of 16-30, but anyone can read and learn from our content.

Brand Identity

For our brand identity, we needed to come up with a colour palette to use for our logo and across the website and social media accounts. After experimenting with different colour combinations, we settled on purple, grey and black, purple being our main colour. The purple represents ambition and creativity and we felt it was a great colour choice because of this reason.

Morgan B-S and Scott C designed the logo for MET Connect using this colour palette. They had a few designs drawn out and as a class we decided which one we liked best. In the end, we decided on this one:

Image-wise, we used images we already have which have been taken in college and have the MET logo on them somewhere. These were added into the gallery and are the pictures we will be using on the social media accounts. We will be taking more throughout the project to use, ensuring they feature the MET logo.

Social Media

Social media is the best way to promote your work these days, especially with the pandemic stopping in-person events and exhibitions. All age groups use it and so we can reach anyone on the platforms. For MET Connect, we created an Instagram page and TikTok account to promote the website.

We agreed that all of us would post on the Instagram page, but the TikTok account would be left to Ellie R & Ellie H as they have a better understanding of the platform and it’s only become really popular in the last year so a lot of us are still unfamiliar with it and its complex algorithm.

For the Instagram page, we decided to each come up with our own templates for our personal pages and then collaborate on ones for the full website promotion. I was in charge of creating these posts for the launch. I made sure to stick to the brand identity by using the colour palette and logo across these posts.

For the launch post, I began with the ‘Circuit Board Social Media Graphic’ template on Canva and changed the colours to the purple we have on the colour palette. I then edited the text to ‘METCONNECT: LAUNCHING TODAY’ and the website address - ‘METCONNECT.INFO’ and replaced the background with a photo of Ellie H which is part of our brand identity. I put this in black & white and turned down the opacity, but felt it worked better in colour so changed it back. I then exported this and opened it in Photoshop to add the MET Connect logo at the bottom and place a thin, purple border around the outside of the post to finish it off. I exported the final design in a .PNG format and AirDropped this to my phone ready to post on launch day.

We also needed a story to post on the day too. I decided to create this in Photoshop with a plain template as we needed the logo on it and wouldn’t be able to do this in Canva. I wanted to keep it similar to the post, so I added the photo of Ellie H as the background, turning down the opacity, and putting purple rectangles at the top & bottom for the text to go over. At the top, I put ‘LAUNCHING TODAY’ and ‘METCONNECT.INFO’ at the bottom, with the MET Connect logo in the centre of the page. I finished off by exporting it in a .PNG format, also AirDropping this to my phone ready to post.

I shared the designs with the class to make sure everyone was happy with them before posting, which they were.

Before posting anything, we needed to create a hashtag template to promote the website further. I came up with this -

#metconnect #music #musicblog #onlinemagazine #onlinemagazine #foodblog #sportsblog #podcasts #musictutorials #tutorials #photography #newblog #tiktoks #musicthroughtheages #elliescorner #howtomusic #wired #themic #womeninsport #frankscdfinds #collegelifestyle #metbehindthescenes #futurewithfaith

It contains hashtags relevant to all of the pages and the website in general. We will adapt this to fit future posts if needed.

For TikTok, Ellie R posted a couple of TikToks on the MET Connect page relevant to the course we do and the website itself. With TikTok, you should only use 3/4 hashtags maximum in the caption and Ellie has used ones related to the course name and website which is great.

LAUNCHING THE METCONNECT WEBSITE

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and Worthing being in Tier 2, we were unable to host a launch event in college for MET Connect. However, we still did an online launch across our socials. Whilst it wasn’t the same, it still went well and we reached a new audience with it.

On the day of the launch, I posted on the MET Connect Instagram using the templates I had previously created. The caption for the post was short and simple -

‘METCONNECT HAS LAUNCHED!

Head over to metconnect.info to check out our new site, featuring articles, podcasts, videos etc, from our wonderful contributors.

LINK IN BIO 🦦’

I posted the hashtag template I created in the comments section.

The post reached 42 people, 33% of which weren’t following the account. 2 of them came from hashtags, which shows they are working. This engagement could be improved and we hope to do this with future posts. We will be changing the templates to make them more engaging and appealing for new visitors.

I also posted on the story with the other template and shared the post to it after with a ‘Link in bio’ GIF. These stories reached 22 accounts, although we only got 1 profile visit from them. Again, we need to create more engaging stories for Instagram to bring in more people and keep them engaged. I didn’t hashtag the stories, but think this would be effective in expanding our audience so will be doing it for future stories.

For TikTok, Ellie H created a video mashup of all of the contributors in college, captioning it with -

‘Met connect team working hard’

This video has so far reached 347 people and received 23 likes, as well as 2 shares. This is promising as the TikTok algorithm can be hard to figure out and getting that many views on a video doesn’t happen a lot for small accounts. We saved this TikTok and posted it on the Instagram account & to Instagram Reels to get more engagement for it, which worked.

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Overall, the launch was a success. Whilst it didn’t go how we had originally hoped to (with an exhibition held in college), the online launch reached a lot of new people and now the MET Connect Instagram is at nearly 60 followers. If restrictions change in the new year, we may be able to hold a launch exhibition for new content for the website one week, or even just an exhibition for all the amazing work currently on there. Whilst it won’t be a ‘new website’ launch, it will still be effective in bringing in a new audience and boosting the website to more people. It will also give us the opportunity to plan this event as we have not had the chance to do one before and it would be a great learning experience for all of us.

PROJECT EVALUATION

Project 2 has seen me make a lot of progress with MET Connect and my page, ‘HOW TO...Music’. Launching the website and social media for MET Connect has been a huge success and seen our website grow and reach many new people.

Working on my page ‘HOW TO...Music’ has gone very well and I have been able to develop not only the page but my own skills. It has taught me a lot about website management. Although I run my own music website out of college, I haven’t been doing anything with it for months and was out of the loop with current online trends. However, running ‘HOW TO...Music’ has meant I have been able to get back into music journalism and am getting up to date with how things have changed this year, especially with the pandemic. It has really inspired me to start up my website again and given me lots of new content ideas, especially for social media as that was something I didn’t focus on too much before.

It has taught me how to better plan articles and schedule the writing time, rather than playing it by ear depending on when PR emails come in. I am happy with the aesthetic for my page and the templates I have created for social media. Working on my own page as well as the MET Connect website in a whole has taught me a lot about creating logos and designing web pages from scratch, rather than from a template. I usually use Wordpress, but as this is all done on Wix, it has helped me learn how to use it better and create web pages without relying on templates.

Working on this project has also helped me work in a team better. I am used to doing things independently and haven’t done much group work since I left school, but this project has shown me how to communicate better in a team and plan more efficiently. As a group, we were able to set up a successful website and social media accounts and plan engaging content that reached a lot of new people.

In the future, I will schedule my time better. I will also ensure that there is more communication within the group from the start on what work each of us will be doing for the project, rather than leaving it until mid-project. Part of this could be blamed on us not being in college for months due to the pandemic, but also it is down to us to make sure we are getting work done on time and things planned in advance.

I will also create more interactive social media content to better promote our work. Whilst we did reach lots of new people, our content engagement statistics show we had the potential to reach even more people but need to change our content so it stands out more to other online culture magazines.