The individual social media campaign required us to individually create 2 fresh social media accounts on LinkedIn and one other social media platform of your choice with instagram being selected after review, to demonstrate our areas of specialisms through self promotion to try and gain traction online testing various posting strategies to gauge what works the best to expand our reach to a larger audience further, taking on feedback from the evidence gathered and adjusting the strategies according to the most effective methods and times to post while also keeping in mind SDG goal 17 concerning working together for a fairer and more just world for everyone by keeping the page inclusive and even promoting green practices The software used for this project was Instagram and LinkedIn. Hardware used for this project was a phone and computer.
Before deciding on the second social media platform to choose first research was conducted on all the viable social media platforms that could of been used to figure out the pros and cons of each one to see which would work best for the direction of content and for the planned target audience of the content that being from the age range of 13-30 with a strong online presence and interest in the behind the scenes of game creation with the gender split being mostly equal but more men leaning as the content specialises into coding.
Based on the previous research instagram was the social media of choice because of the factors of the highest percentage age range being within my target demographic of 18-24 whilst instagram also being in the top 3 most popular social media platforms with 91% of gen z and 86% of millennials using the app as well as a fairly even gender split between users allowing an even spread of audience while allowing my content direction to be sallied effectively of being more casual and fun.
Once the social media platform was chosen, research was done to identify the most active posting times and days to maximise reach and growth. This included analysing which content formats performed best and how they influenced engagement, for example, Instagram Reels can boost views but may receive fewer likes and comments. Hashtag strategy was also explored, combining popular and niche hashtags to balance broader reach with higher visibility in specific communities.
The next step, after identifying the most effective post types and times, was reviewing popular creators in the same or related fields to discover commonly used techniques that could be applied to my account for faster growth and to gain traction quicker. Most successful accounts maintained a consistent theme across posts, helping them stand out and develop a recognisable niche style from the larger crowd. They also featured strong, consistent personal branding, making their content easily identifiable and encouraging viewers to seek out more of their work.
A timeline was created after the research was completed to plan and schedule when posts should be made each week
When first creating the account, I made sure to try and make the account name more unique and identifiable as a brand as opposed to just it being just my name to be unique from the crowd, as well as early on selecting a minimalist profile picture to look professional. The biography is short, describing the page and what I do, and I included a link to my website to promote myself to any potential companies looking at my profile. Another important step was to transfer the account to a business account to gain insights into the profiles' analytics to gather evidence of what works or doesn’t to further direct and attune the content that is posted, to maximise reach across the platform.
The niche that I wanted the account to carve out in the market was being a more casual, jokey and a light hearted page that more focuses making the work shown on the page easier to digest, seem more trendy and relatable to those in the same field by combining the most popular trends and music with showcasing the work hopefully boosting reach further through the algorithm by using popular audio clips at the time of posting. As well as following relevant accounts in similar industries to make myself known and attempt to get followers back.
The first piece of content posted was a simple but rather plain image with no hashtags; however, it included a popular audio clip to test how that might perform and how much trending audio could affect the result. The 24 hours after posting this post ended up gathering 3 views while at the time of writing 3/05/2025 the views stopped at 15 people with a split of 60% coming from followers and 40% being non followers with 2 likes and 0 comment showing that this post while it didn’t perform badly for a first post it also didn’t have significant reach even with the help of trending audios and popular hashtags, the post was also made at 3:00 pm on a Thursday is during peak traffic on instagram eliminating the factor of user inactivity as a cause of low viewership meaning the issue laid on my end with the content. So after reviewing the data retrieved from the post, every new post from then on, I made sure they were more visually stimulating and appealing to try and increase the reach with relevant and popular hashtags to further boost reach.
The second post was a full render of my green cityscape project to help promote the principles of SDG 17 of a sustainable future through partnership, in this case, a community coming together to help form a green city, more visually appealing than the first. Posted at 2:50 PM on Thursday, which is Instagram’s peak activity period, and the post was expected to outperform the first post. However, it ended up with 13 views by 04/05/2025, 2 fewer than the first post, with 69.2% from followers, 30.8% from non-followers, and just 2 likes and no comments. While it initially grew faster, reaching 6 views in 24 hours, it soon plateaued and fell behind. This suggests visual appeal alone wasn’t enough to sustain engagement after the initial promotion and 24 hours. The post potentially could have been drowned out among high-volume hashtags or underperformed due to the algorithm favouring the account’s first post, as it is known that Instagram's algorithm helps promote new accounts. Based on these findings, I decided to continue posting visually engaging content with relevant hashtags.
On the next 2 posts they both were a collection of images each garnering 15 and 14 views respectively with around a 80-20% split of follower views to non follower views with 2 and 3 likes per post as well showing that while gradual the interactions and reach were growing overall across the content posted while also managing to gain the occasional follow reach around 5 at this time.
For the 5th post, I decided to try releasing a reel of test gameplay footage to compare how the algorithm and viewers receive different forms of content. The post was made on a Monday during absolute peak times of 3 pm managing gaining a staggering 140 views in The initial 24 hours completely exceeding expectations and the trending growth between the previous posts settling on 160 views at the time of writing 4/05/2025 with a viewership split of 2.5-97.5% views from followers to non followers garnering also 4 likes and 3 followers from one post alone. This creates a strong case with the backing from previous research that video based content gains the most traction and generates the furthest reach when compared to other content types, with this data in mind any posts from that point should be either exclusively videos for maximum engagement and growth or mostly videos with an occasion image or collection to keep content non formulaic and from getting repetitive.
When creating an account on LinkedIn, while following mostly all the same steps as Instagram, and for personal branding, I kept the page strictly professional. I had an image of myself as the profile picture so that any potential employers could identify me. This account was made to fit in with LinkedIn and its professional identity, with posts being more organised, relevant, and structured.
The first post was a render of my Green Cityscape project with 5 relevant hashtags, 4 of which were popular. It was posted at noon on a Saturday, a peak time for that day, but not as active as other weekdays, suggesting it might not perform as well compared to posts made at more active times. The post gained 152 impressions, 9 likes, and 2 comments, with 30% of viewers in the computer games industry, 24% with entry-level experience, and 21% local to me, indicating some success in reaching the target demographic. Despite factors working against it, like the less active posting time. The post did well nonetheless, possibly boosted by being the first post on the account, however, there is no obvious research on this topic. I plan to replicate the approach for future posts.
The second and third posts performed similarly to the first but failed to match its overall engagement and impressions, or comments. The second post received 139 impressions, 4 reactions, and no comments. Its audience consisted of 50% entry-level professionals, 30% from the computer games industry, and 20% from mid-sized companies (501–1000 employees), indicating that the content is reaching the relevant and valuable industry audience, increasing the potential for an industry-relevant company to notice my posts. The third post, which was the first to include a GIF showcasing a game mechanic, saw a decrease to 104 impressions but slightly higher engagement with 6 reactions and no comments. Its audience shifted somewhat, with 35% local viewers, 35% entry-level professionals, and 31% from the games industry. This suggests that while GIFS may not boost reach, but can improve viewer engagement.
The 4th post was the first to be in a video format and performed decently, however, still not reaching the same impressions as the very first post, peaking at 128 with 4 reactions and 0 comments, and severely deviating from the target audience, with the viewer demographic being just viewers local to me, making me think that videos are not the most effective content type on LinkedIn when compared to images and articles with research confirming my theory. So moving on, I would focus on more image-based content and contemplate trying engaging content such as questionnaires.
One of my latest posts was to spread awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 17, calling for a global partnership for sustainable development and highlighting that more progress can be made when we collaborate across regions and boundaries. I hope the post will make more people aware of the objectives and what they could do to help.
In conclusion, with Instagram, at this point, I managed to gain a total of 232 views, 16 likes and 0 comments over 6 posts with a total reach of 163, managing to amass a total of 9 followers, surpassing my initial goal of 7 followers by the end. Concluding that the best way to grow viewership and gain a larger reach is by utilising more reels in combination with trending audios and a mix of popular and more niche hashtags at about a 70%-30% split, as well as more heavily edited videos that I have yet to explore that either make the content more educational or funny to tap into the targeted audience. In contrast, with LinkedIn currently, I have managed to gain a total of 661 impressions with 75 members reached, 25 reactions and 4 comments over a total of 5 posts and amassed a total of 17 connection, most of which are either classmates or lecturers, falling short of my goal of gaining industry connections. Concluding that the best approach to gain more traction on LinkedIn is through posting images and more engaging forms of content, like questionnaires or articles.
Overall, I am happy with how both profiles did and learned a lot on how to effectively promote myself online for a specific target audience, whilst at the same time being critical enough to understand when something didn't work. I also feel like I have successfully included ideas set by the SDG goal 17 on both pages through the inclusion of potential means of strengthening sustainable development from my Green sustainable cityscapes setting examples as well as posts being content from projects promoting partnership between individuals in the industry to grow further for the future together than we could individually. What could have been improved next time was upload consistency, as if I were more consistent, the algorithms would have promoted me more, and the views and followers gained would have compounded instead of dying out shortly after the post