Project Brief

Social media is the new ‘must do’ of the marketing world. To understand social media, you have to use it. In this 12 week project you will plan and implement your own social media campaign to promote your personal website/ web portfolio. There is a competitive element – you need to gain as many unique visits to your personal website through the ‘success’ of your social media campaign, as possible. You will track this using Google analytics. You will also use the insight tools provided on each platform you choose. You will submit a report showing weekly statistics as part of your final outcome.

Social media is a broad term that describes a lot of different platforms, people and purposes. This is why you will have to start thinking about creating a brief (action plan) – the best marketing initiatives are properly planned and social media is no different. You will have to tailor your brief to suit the medium. Once you have decided on your ‘social media campaign’, you will need to develop this as a ‘action plan’ which will be submitted via your online portfolios.


You should be aware that you need to be able to fully realise your social media campaign for promoting your personal website and work towards gaining as many unique visits as possible in the timeframe given (i.e. module deadline). You will also need to track all social media interactions with your page & posts.

Initial Ideas

I brainstormed ideas to start the project and gather thoughts and aspects that may go towards the social media campaign. I wanted to get to know the company further so I met with the client to recieve background information, ready for me to start planning social media posts etc.

Time Mangement

I created a Gnatt Chart to keep on track with my studies and projects this semester and have good time management. I always ensure I have enough time towards the end of the semester to make appropriate changes and submit my work.

I originally was going to complete the social media campaign for my fathers's company 'Cherry Childcare', however, 'SpeedSix' came about asking for help so I decided to continue this project with them. This set me back a couple of weeks but I managed to get back on track after completing the action plan. I then met with the client quickly to move forward with my ideas and recieve more information about what they do.

Website Development

I decided to offer my client a website as part of this project due to their previous site not recieving much action and users having to purchase the 'SpeedSix' products from another website, which decreases user satisfaction. Research can be found on the following page.

Original Website

Their original website, as you can see, is very basic and does not display the information in a fun and intriguing way. I firstly decided to sketch a few ideas. Below are site maps to show the client the various ways the website can be laid out to improve the user interface.

We had a lecture on 'Call To Action' which was great as I felt I could have a call to action on the front page of the SpeedSix site. Below are some sketched ideas of how I could display the call to action.

I then completed further sketches of the front page.

Wireframes were the final sketch to complete before my digital designs. It is important to have lots of sketches before designing digitally as sketching is a quicker process so less time consuming.

Design Digital Developments

I originally created designs on Adobe Photoshop. This gave me an insight into what the webiste will look like when developed on Wordpress. This also enabled me to show the client and recieve their feedback to then continue developing the designs.

My client wanted the carbon background incorparated in the website still, therefore I completed further designs based on their favourities.

I began developing the design on Wordpress. My first designs are below but I felt they were quite basic.

I developed further to improve the look and feel of the website.

Final Outcome

Below is the final website design developed on Wordpress using the Mamp server. Unfortunatley, I no longer have access to the files due to handing it all over to my client for them to host but here is a screen video of the site. I later on made a few small changes as I was not satisfied, and then I handed it over to the client.

Final Changes

Research

In order to continue with my social media project, I decided to research into the different platforms. I also researched into social media and optimum posting times etc to get the most recongition as possible on my posts.

Please select the buttons below to go to the specific research section or just scroll through:

Website Research

For the website development process I researched into web designs and rules to follow to create a good site that users will love.

I then looked into more sailing specfic sites so it is more relevant to my target auidence.

Social Media Research

I decided to research into social media optimisation to ensure SpeedSix get the most recongition they can and it will guide users into making a purchase. Below is a chart of what our DMD class created last semester to use when planning our social media campaign. It shows a simplified breakdown of when the best time is to post, the type of users on that platform and some statistics.

The main social media platforms researched further:

I then looked into what images and branding I need to create for the social media platforms. This enabled me to create a social media page that looks professional. As SpeedSix already have a Facebook and Twitter page, I will only need to create a Instagram page but I still changed the images on all platforms so all the image sizes fit.

Planning Research

Social media posts for buisnesses take more planning than just an everyday post. I needed to ensure the posts followed the correct theme and lanuage that reflects the company. The client and I worked together creating the content and added it to 'Trello' so we could both approve the post before it is live. This worked well as we could give eachother inspiration, such as on 'Womens Day 2018', we did a post about women and sailing.

Social Media Posts

My idea was to do one post a day across all three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) of students best work. It was difficult to recieve everyones work so I had to constantly remind people to send in their work, to ensure there was a different post each day to intrigue the visitors.

Below are some examples of what I have done along with some insights. We managed to get the followers up to over 100 quite quickly so menat we had access to the insights settings which was great to see about our followers so we had more of an idea of when to post.

I also created alot of extra resources to use for the social media posts such as video content and adverts etc.

More About SpeedSix

SpeedSix produce a range of products designed to protect your boat and enhance performance. Designed by sailors, for sailors. Below are some webistes that sell the product along with their original site.

SpeedSix Action Plan

As part of this project, we had to create an action plan to give to the client initally so they have an insight into what I can do for them. It was also good to complete this to have a set out plan of what I am going to post with a schedule, and for the client to approve the first few posts to get started with the campaign.

Final Outcome

The SpeedSix social media campaign was very successful, hence why I continued to complete the new website for them. Eventhough the website is not yet live, it is all ready for the client to host when they want to.

Below shows the increase in followings which also increased the recongition on posts such as more comments and likes.

Twitter and Facebook was already created before the campaign but it recieved between 10-20 more followers on each platform. Instagram was a new platform for SpeedSix so to gain over 200 followers in a short time frame was excellent to see.