Background
My Digital Artefact is an Instagram page about the stories of the high fashion industry.
The problem I am addressing is not gaining enough audience and interactions.
I developed this project because I have always wanted to do a high fashion project and after graduating, I want to be a part of this industry. This project is a follow-up work from BCM 325. The page is for young adults and people who want to know more about the high fashion world. I think my page will also help people who want to work in the high fashion industry.
Progress:
In my pitch video, I addressed the problem of not gaining enough audience and I got feedback from my friends who worked in the fashion industry about my BCM325 project because my work was on WordPress, which he said was unpopular and suggested trying another platform.
Then for my BCM 302, I choose to continue my work on Instagram.
I created 2 prototypes and tested the interacting indicator.
The first post was about the famous fashion designer that I think everyone knows- Yves Saint Laurent. The post was the “behind the curtain” story that not many people know about him. I thought the unique content would attract more people.
However, after a week, the indicators were very low.
The post only got 8 likes, 6 comments and reached 48 people.
However, after learning about how to run a promotion, I decided to test it on my first post.
However, after learning about how to run a promotion, I decided to test it on my first post.
I decided to run the cheapest promotion to see how it went. The pack was $2 per day for a total of 3 days. My target audience is Vietnamese people (because I am currently in Vietnam). I chose to run my first promotion at a low budget of $2 per day in a total of 3 days. I had chosen Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to be the target dates. My target action is to gain interactions and the locations were big cities in Vietnam, such as Hanoi, Saigon, Danang, Nha Trang, and Hai Phong. I wanted to run the promotion in Australia but because I’m currently in Vietnam, the promotion only allowed me to run within my country.
After 3 days of running a promotion, the results surprised me. The number of likes increased to 17. However, somehow the number of people commenting on the post stayed the same. But what shocked me the most was the number of people that the post reached, it was 2954 people. besides, 1 person shared my post and 15 people saved it.
After that, I considered doing a second post about the fashion industry in the movie The Devils Wear Prada. The movie was about the high fashion world and how hard it was to work and to be in the high fashion industry.
I thought changing the topic was a new way to approach my followers and I thought it would be successful. The post was uploaded at 9 pm on Friday, which is the best time to approach the audience. But it was still not enough. I just only got 6 likes with 2 comments and the post only reached 32 people.
After running 2 prototypes and reading feedback from my peers, I think I cannot just rely on the promotions to attract my followers. I also noticed that I do not have any fixed schedule for the posts and stories so that people will not stay with the page and the interactions will drop rapidly.
Therefore, I decided to create a fixed schedule for my posts. Posts will be up every Friday and the story will be every day. I will also change the format of the posts, from long boring text to photos with short content.
The contents of each post were not linked to others, so the audience can choose to read the post they want to read. I also considered changing the post with a long boring text to a post with short content on the photos and keeping the descriptions short.
The schedule for the post is every Friday and for the story is every day.
The next post was about the story about the moments that made history. I made the description shorter and I also shortened the content and turned it into a photo, therefore, my audience does not have to read the long text, they just need to swipe and read the main stories.
The next post was about the story about the moments that made history. I made the description shorter and I also shortened the content and turned it into a photo, therefore, my audience does not have to read the long text, they just need to swipe and read the main stories.
Important learning moments
1. I got my first feedback from one of my followers
She accidentally read my post about the movie The Devils Wear Prada in the afternoon before her interview. And during the interview, they asked her about the necklace in the movie. She said it was random but somehow it helped her to get the job. I was so excited to be actually helpful. I did not expect to receive feedback from my followers.
After getting the feedback from one of my followers, I understand that the indicators of the post may not be as high as I expected, however, the number of people who are actually engaged and reading all of my posts is true. This means all 48 people who saw the post, read all of the contents I had written. Therefore, I know that I’m doing something really helpful and interesting.
I understand that running a promotion was not a cheap way to approach the audience. However, it was a great way to connect to more people. Pixievn2 was one of the followers that clicked on the promotion post and I am so glad that it helped her in some ways. Considering the FIST, I think that running the cheapest promotion to reach more people and somehow I actually helped someone, was also a cheap, tiny and effective way and I considered that was my little success.
After a period of observing and engaging with the followers, I know what they need and expect from my page. It was not only random posts about everything related to the high fashion industry that everyone knows. They expect something behind the scenes, something that fewer people know but the one who actually works in the industry knows. This is a small detail but I think that will be a big help.
I also know how to apply the feedback loop in a real situation and how to respond to the feedback and make changes based on them
2. Finding content to post
During the semester, I tried my best to find interesting information to put in my posts. These stories are not something that you can see every day. Because they are the behind-the-scenes stories and sometimes only people who work in the industry would know.
I first found some stories about each famous luxury fashion designer to know what they were like in the past and then I started to ask around my friends and my family’s personal shopper to know more about them.
During the finding information time, I can feel that my soft skills such as communication and management are developing. This is also FIST because I asked people who I know and use my relationships to get as much information as possible.
During this time, I was also FEFO, because not everyone is available to spend their time and energy talking about such things. And I have to contact a lot of people to know what exactly the high fashion industry is and what are the stories behind each brand. A lot of people said no but I kept trying and some of them finally said yes.
3. Social utility
I have not seen any platform or groups which are especially for people who want to know interesting stories behind the luxury brands before. I was always wanted to share the stories that I know to people. I hope these information can be helpful as they are now.
When people talked about the high fashion industry, all they think about were the expensive clothes and jewellery, the exclusive services and that it is only for the wealthy one. However, it is not only just about the price, it’s the whole stories behind each brand and all the trend that people are wearing, or even a T-shirt has its own story to tell and it would be the idea of the famous fashion designers.
The high.fashion,stories is not only the place for me to share stories, but also for other people who want to add in the stories they know about the high fashion industry.
Reference list
https://www.thelist.com/85242/high-fashion-industry-doesnt-want-know/
https://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/definition/feedback-loop
https://www.tedmitew.net/tag/fail-early-fail-often/
https://www.porchlightbooks.com/blog/changethis/2015/the-simplicity-cycle-manifesto
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7355146/
https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/what-makes-a-popular-luxury-fashion-brand
https://www.lsretail.com/resources/6-technology-trends-reshaping-luxury-fashion-industry
https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/the-luxury-market-in-the-fashion-industry/151733
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