Category: Persuasion

Since the start of April, Ellie and I have been working with Four Mutts TV (our client from the persuasion project). We have been maintaining their social media platforms, creating and posting content. We meet with Jennifer the owner on a weekly basis to plan the posting schedule for the next week, which helps us to maintain and manage the content.

By working voluntarily with Four Mutts TV I feel that it helped me to manage my time better, especially while still working on university projects at the same time. It also helps give me a sense of how I can manage any future projects I might have while completing uni work. This work has also brought me much closer to Ellie and helped us to develop a working relationship that very strong and works well. I look forward to continuing to work with Ellie on the project over the summer.

Below are links to Four Mutts TV social media platforms to see some of our recent work.

www.facebook.com/fourmuttstv

www.instagram.com/fourmuttstv

On Monday I received feedback from Jay about the Persuasion Project I did this term. I have really enjoyed this project, It was one of my favourite projects that have done throughout levels 4 & 5.

The feedback from Jay was as followed:

General: Very good effort and engagement at a very challenging time. I’m impressed with how your team adapted so quickly to working remotely and communicating via Teams and maintaining excellent communication with your client. You’ve done a great job at interpreting what was in effect quite a restrictive brief in terms of traditional Graphic Communication with the client keeping the name, logo and colours already being used with its focus firmly on social media and video intro’s / outro’s etc! 

WordPress Blog, R&D pdf, Outcomes pdf: The combination of your Blog posts and R&D pdf are extremely thorough, detailed, up to date and reflective and include evidence of workshops, seminars, studio practice and research etc. Very well organised R&D / outcomes pdf’s that reflected client’s needs extremely well. I was impressed with the appropriateness of the results, particularly the way you’ve demonstrated its flexibility in terms of cross platform across various social media. 

Great work! A valuable addition to your folio and skillset.

Overall I was pleased with the feedback from Jay especially the comments about the organisation of my R&D file which is new to me this year. When I first had to make an R&D file I wasn’t sure what to include however, this feedback has given me the confidence that I have been including everything that I should have been. I was also really pleased with the recognition of the approach of showing how the concept could work across different platforms.

We also had some initial feedback from the client, Jennifer, about the work that we had produced. In her initial email back she said that she was blown away by the standard of work we had produced. She thought mine and Ellie’s work was really good, and that we had really understood the brand values. This was super positive to hear from Jennifer, it gave me a further boost of confidence.

Over the Easter break Jennifer got in contact with both myself and Ellie asking if we would like to do some social media work experience for them. We were both keen to work with Jennifer some more and pleased that she thought our work was that good that she wanted to use it in real life for her brand. Since then we have had several Skype meeting with Jennifer to discuss content for the social media. We have also had calls over Zoom where we met Hannah who also’s working with FourMutts helping with marketing  and business pitching.

Ellie and myself worked together to create a collaborative concept of the social media content for FourMuttsTV. We worked together to create professional concept documents, for each new idea that Jennifer asked us to visualise. One of the first concept documents that we worked on was creating schedules for the social media and some example content of posts. Jennifer seemed really pleased with the work as she had only asked for the first weeks schedule but me and Ellie felt it was best to produce 4 weeks in advance so we weren’t overwhelmed with content.

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We have also been asked to produce some visuals  for a pitch they are working on for Twinings Tea. This was really interesting to work on creating visuals for their content ideas. Again really useful experience working with a client on a project. We were working with tight deadlines, but I feel that myself and Ellie managed this well. Our experience from field (work experience) helped us to understand  how to work within tight deadlines.  I am excited to keep working with Ellie and Jennifer on the social media.

 

These were the final outcomes that I presented for the formative assessment. I produced social media posts for both Facebook & Instagram, Facebook/Instagram Stories, GIFs/Stickers and a video intro/outro.

As mentioned before the feedback I had from Jennifer was to look more into algorithms (e.g Facebook), brand safety and avoiding risk in terms of interactive elements. Also how a brand applies itself to different campaigns this is something that she wanted to see. I conducted this further research to help me understand more.

Social Media Algorithms

All social media accounts have algorithms which means that different people will see your posts differently. Facebook introduced a feature in 2019 to their site which allows you to see why you are seeing a post. In theory they are in place to go through all the post that are being posted every day to the ones that are relevant to you and getting rid of the once’s that might not be so relevant.

Algorithms are all based off engagement, likes, comments and shares are important because the more interaction from a post the more likely it is to be rewarded by the algorithm. Each social media platform will have a different algorithm, but these basics of engagement will boost posts being shown.

As Jennifer had been intrigued by how my concept would work on Facebook, I looked into this more through my research. Facebook’s algorithm is based around what you most likely to see depending on how you rank in certain categories such as; post type (e.g. video or photo), who interact with most and popularity of posts. Therefore, the most you start conversations between your audience the more engagement a post gets the better the Facebook algorithm will work for the Facebook page.

Like Instagram, Facebook has recently introduced stories to their platforms. According to sprout social, Facebook stories have over 300 million active users a day. Although they aren’t currently as popular as Instagram stories, I still think that this is an avenue to be explored and would be worthwhile to consider.

Brand Safety Interactive Element

Brand Safety according to IAB Internet Advertising Bureau is keeping a brand reputation safe when advertising online. Using interactive elements on social media such as Instagram templates which followers can screenshot and share is always going to have an element of risk about what they say. In order for you to see the content your audience is sharing, the individual would need to tag your account within their post/story.

Through this tag you are able to read and re-post any stories or post, this way you are able to see what’s being posted about the brand. Although you can see the post you aren’t able to control it, the only way to get rid of negative branding is through reporting the post, which could take some time as it has to be approved by the team at Instagram.

Meanwhile, managing what users post to/on your social media pages is slightly easier. There is of course a small risk but as the owner of the page you have the power to remove any of this content that it posted to/on your page.

There is always an element of risk when it comes to using social media, even more so with the interactive elements that will spark a conversation amongst your community. However, those people who want to participate in your conversation through engaging with ‘screenshot and share’ aspects of the brand, will only take the time to do so if they are genuinely interested in the brand

 

References

Aboulhosn, S. (2020) Facebook statistics every marketer should know in 2020. Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/ (Accessed: 31 March 2020)

Barnhart, B. (2019) Everything you need to know about social media algorithms. Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-algorithms/ (Accessed: 31 March 2020)

Cooper, P. (2020) How the Facebook Algorithm works in 2020 and How to Make it work for you. Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/(Accessed: 31 March 2020)

Banner Flow. (2020) The Ultimate Guide to Brand Safety. Available at: https://blog.bannerflow.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-brand-safety/ (Accessed: 1 April 2020)

 

Today we had another meeting with Jennifer over Skype were she gave us feedback on the concept documents that we had sent over to her. We suggested a Skype meeting as it was more convenient for Jennifer to speak to us directly rather than write it all out, this also saved time for us when it came to improving before Thursday’s deadline. It was myself and Ellie who were only available to Skype with Jennifer however, we took notes on the others feedback so we could pass it on to them.

I was super happy with Jennifers feedback saying she loved the concept and thought I’d ‘nailed the brief’. She liked the use of colours to break up the different content for the videos. She asked me if I’d like to do some work experience with them and work on their Facebook campaign. I thought that this was a massive positive and I was really excited about the chance. She also loved Ellie’s concept and also asked her to do some work experience with them on their Instagram campaign. She didn’t say much about my video intro and outro by feedback seemed positive, but she felt the style and tone of voice used within my social media campaign was right for her branding.

She suggested that I look at how I could implement the style to different campaigns, she mentioned as campaign they have coming up called wet nose day, play on words of Red Nose Day.  She also suggested having a page in my concept document about algorithms, particularly Facebook. Some further research into these and brand safety/risk in terms of using interactive elements.

My plan from here now is to developed the project further adding in my further research knowledge to help me refine my outcome before Thursday looking at how the different elements could work across the different social media platform (e.g Facebook/Instagram).

Today we had another tutorial before we send our concept documents over to Jennifer to get some initial feedback on her thoughts. Present at the tutorial were, Ellie, Joe and Siwen which again was good as they have seen this project progress over time. It was interesting to also see how their projects had developed further.

I embedded the video and the GIFS into my PDF document so that I was able to let the PDF run smoothly without changing over the programmes every two minutes during the tutorial.

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Overall Jay and the rest of the team seemed pleased with my outcomes and concept, they said the colour coding idea was really working well in all context and it was useful to see how the brand would work across the entire social media platform. It was a consistent concept which works well. People also seemed pleased with my GIFS and thought they were interesting.

I have now emailed over all the concept documents from those in the group to Jennifer and we are now waiting on feedback. When we get this feedback hopefully we will be able to work on the project more develop it in time in before our deadline on Thursday. By getting Jennifers feedback at this stage in the project will help inform us whether we are on the right track and if there is anything else that she might want to see from us from the project.

Following the tutorial I went onto develop the intro and Outro for the video. I took the first intro alongside the third outro ideas and put them together all in one. Overall this seemed to work much better and I thought was in terms of aesthetics and communicating to the audience. I also had the idea of linking the colour coding system from the social media post to the videos for example if the video was about an event they had covered then the end colour would be yellow.

In terms of social media development as my feedback from the group was clear that the colour coding concept worked well and I need to work on this idea. I decided to move forward and develop the social media posts to the correct size on Illustrator.

• Instagram: 1080 x 1080px
• Facebook: 2048 x 1149px
• Instagram/Facebook Stories: 1080 x 1920px

I have developed the interactive side of the branding rather than anything else, I felt the feedback on the aesthetic was really positive and didn’t need developing much. Keeping in theme of the colour coding I developed some interactive elements such as Instagram stories, to work alongside this colour coding system, like reminders for videos going live.

I also incorporated the navy into the design as this is one of their main colours, the blue would be like an all around colour one for announcements or just general stuff including backgrounds for instagram story content. I also thought that by doing things like Q&A it would allow Jennifer to maybe find new stories out there to share with the world, while also getting her audience talking about the brand.

Furthermore I also developed some initial GIF ideas that could be used. These could be used by the viewers in their posts which would be viewed by their network therefore the brand would reach a wider audience. These I created on photoshop and simply by taking elements of their brand identity and animating it into a logo. I also took the hashtag that we’d be provided and adapted that to create a GIF/sticker.

Today we presented our PDF Concept Documents to Jay and rest of the group. Again in this tutorial it was myself, Ellie, Joe and Siwen same as last time which was good to get feedback from the people that heard and saw my initial ideas.

I thought that everyone had really good ideas, even though we are all working from the same brief we are all working very differently which is good as it will give Jennifer a variety of ideas and choices. I really like Ellie’s work, it all worked really well together as a package. She’d thought of really interesting ideas on social media like using filters which are popular right now. Her gifs were really interesting I thought that they would work really well with the existing brand. Joe focused on storyboards of his ideas, I thought his approach of using illustation (frame by frame animation) was very interesting and I’m interested to see his final outcomes. Siwen also had a very different approach focusing on social media aspects and posters.

Jay seemed really pleased with my concepts that I presented, he thought that the idea of using some colour coding system to present information was very effective. This was the general feedback I got from the rest of group which made me feel that this was the best concept to take forward. In comparison the second concept felt like it was too busy and the coloured overlays weren’t doing justice to the imagery.

In terms of the video intro and outros I found this is where I got most of my feedback. Jay seemed to like all three but the first and third concept seem to be the favourite three. The feedback was the same from jay and the rest of the team that they felt the intro from the first concept worked the best as it was simple and effective. As Jennifer pointed out ‘less is more’ which why I just have the icon appear quickly over the top of the video. In terms of the outro it appeared that the group liked the use of colour as they felt it caught their eye. They felt that it worked better at the end of the video with the call to actions as they viewer would stick around to see the call to actions. Furthermore, they liked that I had added the social media handle at the end of this concept which they felt I should adapt and take forward into the next stage of development.

My plan for the next stage of development before Thursday is too:

• Develop the social media side of the project further creating a final ‘package’ that could be shown to the client.
• Develop the Interactive elements of the social media further.
• Develop the Intro and Outro based on the feedback.
• Develop my GIFS (I wasn’t able to show these for some reason during the tutorial)

Following on from the initial ideas stage and tutorial I thought that I would start to develop an illustrator document which would show me some visuals for the social media side of the project rather than the video intros. Since doing my work placement I have developed this working technique where I just have everything on one art board it allows me to see what happens as my ideas develop.

Social Media 

For the social media posts I first thought about create a colour scheme which they could use for the three different sections of the video content. They have three types of videos they conduct story, causes and events having three different colours will make it easier for the audience to see what’s video is being posted and what the content is related too. Using the colour palette which were sent to us by Jennifer I thought that I’d start by creating a variety of colour palettes using the mustard and navy as the main colours.

I mocked up some initial ideas of instagram posts and instagram stories. Instagram stories are a growing way in which to engage your audience which is why I thought that it was important to suggest these to the client. I did these on illustrator and used photoshop to place them into templates on photoshop. I had two initial concepts at this stage one using plain coloured background and the other using photo overlay. Both of these concepts at this stage could work and I think I’ll present both at the next tutorial.

Concept 1 – Mockups

Concept 1 – Mockups

Concept 2 – Mockups

Video Intro/Outro

For the main deliverable I did do some initial storyboards for ideas, this helped to clearly see what I was doing in each stage. As mentioned before I felt that using the logo an animating this would be best as it’s simple and not over complicated. Out of the six initial ideas I took forward concept/idea 1, 4 and 6. 

Using After Effects meant that I was able to import the logo that had been sent to us to animate which was an easy process. I created three different concepts in order to show on Tuesday during the tutorial.

My first concept was simple have the logo spinning over the video then at the end have a black screen with three call to actions at the end popping up. Simple yet effective, for the tutorial I used a video of my own dog to demonstrate how this would work with video content.

The second concept was using the full logo in the intro in a similar manner to the first concept. At the end the call to actions would be shown over the top of the video, which is an interesting idea and I’m intrigued to see what the outcome might be.

The third concept used similar animation as the first two but introduces the use of colours which I felt was important considering the social media concepts were based around the idea of using colour. It uses colour both at the start and end of the video alongside call to actions.

I will show all these concepts on Tuesday to Jay and the rest of my team and hopefully gain some feedback and guidance on where to go next and which concept they think I should develop further when it comes to the video intro and outro.

 

 

As the main deliverable for this project is a video intro and outro I thought that it would be interesting to conduct some research to see what’s already out there. By doing this will give me an idea of things that are out there and different ways of engaging the audience.

Overview

• I noticed that all the thumbnails for the videos were similar in style, and if they were within a ‘series’ then all the thumbnails were the same.
• The videos were between 3-4 minutes which is a good length as I think it means that the viewers won’t get bored watching.
• The thumbnails aren’t fancy professional photographs, they are simple still shots from the video which if think is important.
• On the videos on social media they tend to have the an animated logo in the top right hand corner.

Introduction

• The Dodo videos don’t really have a intro to them, they go straight into their video which I think might be because they know that people won’t stop scrolling just because of a logo on a screen. This is something I’ll need to consider.
• In there video they do have there logo which is constantly in the corner of the video which shows how the brand is shown throughout the video.
• Animation – Throughout their videos they seem to have animation over the top of elements. For example if the animals make a noice you might see lines to indicate they are making sounds.
• Subtitles – all their videos have subtitles which helps to boost engagement so people can still watch the videos even if they can’t get sound (maybe they are on a bus and don’t have headphones)

Outro

• At the end of this particular video they have a call to action to help people find more information about another cause that the brand is supporting. This is an interesting idea as I know that the client will be working on videos that support different causes.

• The end of the video has a bright coloured animated boarder which catches attention of the audience. Also have their branding large and on the side they had three call to actions, like, comment and subscribe. I think theses are the three main call to actions being used on YouTube and other video platforms.

Reference

The Dodo (2020) Man Finds Tiny Puppies In Box On Side Of The Road. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49xvj7E6izk&feature=emb_title (Accessed: 20 March 2020)