The Challenges Of My Role

The expectation for this task was to discuss potential challenges in my role as Social Media Manager, and the solutions for overcoming these. I focused on three challenges – content, engagement and maintenance of the social platform.

Content

Instagram Stories

Regarding the feature of Instagram Stories, I have identified three possible challenges that I could face as my role in social media management develops. The first, and perhaps the most prominent, is the issue of creating regular content to be shared. The content I create needs to be cohesive with the wider theme of the platform, consistent with other content produced and engaging with key messages of the magazine. I could also face the challenge of oversharing content on the story feature in a way that is overwhelming to an audience.

I have identified solutions for each of these issues. Most develop from planning content in advance. This can then be stored in a shared folder and used when needed. Planning content in advance will also allow me to develop a curated design style for the story feature, which will be consistent and more professional for the social platform. The solution I have established for ensuring that the balance of sharing isn’t overwhelming is limiting the number of Instagram Stories to a maximum of three per day.

Visuals

I have identified challenges related to visual content created for the social platform. These concerns involve ensuring images shared are relevant to the promotion of the magazine and key messages, ensuring visuals run in a curated manner with the wider theme of the platform, and creating regular content to be promoted across the platform when required.

To overcome issues relating to visual content, I will create images related to upcoming features, events and key messages that need promoting. This will be done in advance. I will focus on flat lays that incorporate the digital presence of the magazine to encourage website traffic. To ensure images are presented in a curated manner, I'll make use of the planning app, UNUM. This allows me to view images in the platform grid before they are live, meaning I can preview series, colour schemes and layout. UNUM also gives insight into Instagram Analytics, granting an understanding of the best time to post and reach audience.

To reiterate, I will create all visual content in advance to avoid any challenges.

Copy

A final challenge that content could present is the use of copy. I will need to maintain a tone of voice that is both suitable and fitting of the magazine, as well as consistent. Copy will also need to be of interest to the target audience and convey key messages promptly and concisely.

Solutions for overcoming these challenges will derive from deciding what the magazine is and who the magazine is for. I will look back through our social media archive for inspiration into this. The language used in the copy will be emotive and targeted to our audience. Copy will also be planned in advance so that key messages are posted promptly when needed.

Engagement

Audience Interaction

I have identified challenges with audience interaction on social media. When taking over Instagram, there was very little engagement with the target audience and the platform lacked a strong community. There was also a lack of communication with publications of a similar genre, publishing platforms and industry professionals.

The solutions I have presented to overcome these issues include setting time aside to engage with the target audience and interact with relevant accounts and industry professionals. An aspect of this solution could involve a potential take-over on Bath Spa University’s social media accounts to improve and increase our reach. I will also overcome issues with audience interaction through housekeeping – managing the follow list and culling irrelevant accounts.

Hashtags

A significant feature of Instagram is the use of hashtags to connect with an intended audience. A challenge of this feature is reaching relevant audiences in a wider community, ensuring tags are relevant to the images being shared and assessing whether current tags used have a large enough engagement to be useful.

The solution that encompasses all of these challenges is creating a list of tags with a large following; tags that are being used to share similar content and are relevant to the content being shared. This can be created in advance and stored in a shared folder to be used when needed.

Posting

Challenges surrounding posting include reaching the intended audience at peak times to give content the most success. This challenge also includes rating success in reach by deciding what days are best to share content. I will also evaluate the number of posts to share, both per day and per week.

To overcome posting challenges, I will again make use of the planning application, UNUM. This is due to the analytics feature which grants insight into such considerations. Upgrading Instagram to a business account will also give insight into analytics so I can measure the success of posts and see when our audience is active.

Maintenance

Highlight Covers

Through an analysis of the general maintenance of Instagram, I have identified a number of challenges in the design of highlight covers. Currently, they are out of place with the professional feed that needs to be maintained, the titles of these covers aren’t relevant to the content being shared, and old content is attached to the highlight feature.

As a result of my analysis, I have identified solutions to overcome these challenges. They involve creating new highlight covers using Adobe Capture and Canva. Both apps are used in professional social media management roles. I will decide what sort of content to showcase on our social platforms, and curate the highlight feature accordingly. I will archive older content so that the current team can be featured.

Bio

Presently, the challenges that face the Instagram bio is that copy is unprofessional. It does not make clear what the magazine is about and who it is for, and copy is not engaging or inviting to the intended audience.

The first step in overcoming these challenges will be removing emoticons. They are highly unprofessional for an official outlet, regardless that milk is a student publication. To make our bio clearer on the purpose of the magazine, I will collaborate with the editorial team to create new copy that makes use of emotive, engaging language to share the message of milk concisely.

Follow List

I looked further into the follow list when taking over Instagram. The challenge I identified was the large presence of ghost accounts – accounts that are inactive or spam. A significant portion of who milk is following is also graduates of the university who worked on the magazine in previous years. A final challenge I noted was a lack of industry professionals and similar publications on our follow list.

The solutions in overcoming these challenges are simple. I will cull our following and followers list by evaluating their relevance as an active audience of the magazine. I will also seek out industry accounts, both for inspiration and to build a stronger, lasting community for milk.

Conclusion

To summarise my plans for developing the digital presence of milk, the way to overcome any challenges that maintaining a successful social platform will cause is to plan ahead and be prepared. As such, I will:

1. Plan and create both content and copy in advance.

2. Establish a schedule for sharing content.

3. Establish a schedule for interacting with our audience.

4. Keep updated with media trends to manage analytics.

5. Maintain a cohesive, curated theme throughout the platform.