Same drink, different medium: Creating engaging content about America’s favorite beverage.
@saltyaffogato is an anonymous Instagram account centered around coffee. While I don’t show my face, this account is my outlet for being sassy and snarky on social media, all while expressing my love for coffee. I created this account initially to have an excuse to go to as many different coffee shops as I could, but recently I’ve increased my efforts in outreach.
My initial ideas on my posts were obviously going to be about coffee, but since I’d already been posting pictures of coffee, I needed to stretch my creativity beyond that. I had a very ambitious idea to create a time-lapse video of me making a latte from start to finish (from grind to pour), but it turned out much more difficult, so I cut it down to the final pour and posted that. I wanted to engage my followers so I needed to create posts that allowed them to interact with me.
I used this panorama in one of my posts. I used the Swipeable app to create a seamless background. However, it took me multiple attempts to position the coffeehouse sign exactly where I wanted it. This panorama was originally much longer with the coffee shop at the very center, but I cropped it because having to swipe three times took away from the focal point, and I only wanted two. After I cropped it, I had to make small adjustments to the photo to ensure that Swipeable placed the sign exactly where I wanted it. Once I was satisfied with the placement, I still felt there was something lacking from the post, so I added another image of the storefront to complete the post. I captioned this post with “Atticus is my favorite coffee shop in Utah. Check it out on your next trip to Park City”. This one was less humorous than my other posts because in the end, the account is about coffee, and the shops in Utah. Atticus really is my favorite shop in Utah, and sometimes I go to Park City just to go there. It happens to be located on a very beautiful street and I wanted to capture that vibe.
For another post, I created a diagram in Adobe Illustrator showing the ingredients of different drinks found on many menus in coffee shops. I started drinking coffee only 4 years ago, and I remember vividly feeling overwhelmed while reading a menu and not knowing the difference between an americano and a flat white, or what an affogato was. I’ve seen many diagrams like the one I designed, but I wanted to include the most common drinks so I didn’t overwhelm new coffee drinkers.
I captioned this with “We were all clueless at one point. Screenshot this for the next time you feel lost in a coffee shop.” I want people to feel comfortable ordering coffee, and if this little illustration helps with that, then I want people to use it.
I took this photograph at The Bean Yard in Sandy, UT. I captioned it with “@thebeanyardslc takes coffee to the next level. Pls try it out if you haven’t yet! Comment below with your go-to favorite coffee shop!”
I recieved over 10 comments from followers sharing their favorite places to go. I thought this caption was well-suited for this image because it shows the inside of one of my favorite shops, and in a way, takes the viewer inside the shop as well.
