Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Social Media Guru?
You may think it’s easy to create your own content and receive engagement from your peers. These are the people who love and care about you and that trip you took to get Ben & Jerry’s with your bestie on a wild Wednesday night. It’s when the content isn’t at all about you that a line is drawn in the sand and engagement is a different game…
Have you ever wondered what goes into a brand’s social media posts? It looks like a fun and easy job. Post a cute picture and BOOM. Done. And people are PAID to do it!
Like most of my peers, I’m guilty of spending a couple minutes to find the “perfect” filter. And by “perfect” I mean that filter that emphasizes the remnants of your summer glow yet minimizes the dark circles under your eyes from losing sleep to work the night before.
I was recently tasked with creating a variety of content types that would complement the luxury cosmetics brand, Les Merveilleuses. Simply put, the images that pop into my mind for this brand immediately are roses, macarons, and the colors pink, purple, white, and gold. My goal was to create content using these images while staying true to the brand.
For this project I chose to make my first ever Boomerang video, a branded Photofy photo, a collage, and a couple of edited photos. I posted these 4 different types of content to my personal Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages for the sake of my “little experiment.”
Let’s take a look at these 4 different forms of content now, shall we.
1. My first photo was simple. My roommate just had a birthday and her boyfriend bought her some beautiful flowers from Whole Foods. Les Merveilleuses is a very girly cosmetics brand that often uses roses in their brand image so these worked perfectly. All I had to do was add a soft filter and presto. This image and a short and sweet/super girly caption work best for Instagram.
Simplicity and brevity are necessary characteristics for Instagram. No one wants to stop to read a paragraph as they scroll through their feed. All you need is a brief quote and maybe an emoji or two. It’s somewhat of a tuck and roll situation as if you were to hop out of a moving car. You have to give your followers a reason to pause and give you a quick double-tap without asking too much of them. So select the perfect filter and catch someone’s eye with your “skills.” Hashtags are also encouraged here since, often, people like my fashion forward friends will search a style or a brand by their hashtag and discover something new.
2. The next task to conquer was my Boomerang video. I had a concept in mind from the beginning but needed a friend to execute my idea since I have not entered the selfie craze. With an iPhone and a box of macarons as my only prop, I drove to my friend’s place to bribe her. The macarons doubled as a prop and a payment method.
The resulting steps (that I did not consider beforehand):
- Deciding whether to find a model, pretend to be a model, or pay your model friend with a box of macarons. (I chose the latter.)
- Searching for and purchasing macarons in a hurry.
- Having hair, makeup, nails, and a neutral outfit picked out to complement the brand.
- Taking several shots to see what works best.
- Choosing the winning video, adding a filter, adding a caption, and FINALLY uploading the finished product.
When I arrived at my friend’s townhouse, she already had her makeup ready to go. 10 minutes later I had my video.
Overall, it took just over an hour of total time to put together this 2 second Boomerang video.
3. Not being super savvy in graphic design, I’ve always kind of wondered how brands are able to quickly craft a post with text. Only a week ago, I was introduced to Photofy. If you haven’t already heard of it, I recommend checking it out. It’s easy to use and I got great results from it.
I used some rose petals from my roommate’s flower arrangement (sorry roomie!) to craft my next post. It only took a few minutes to create and publish this one to Pinterest. Pinterest is a great outlet to gain traction for your brand. I used hashtags and a brief one liner for this post. I plan to play with linking the post to this blog post upon completion to see what kind of traffic it will actually generate.
4. My final creation. A collage. (Also created with Photofy.) I used some of my own photos and a couple from the @lm_ladurée Instagram account. I posted this one to Facebook with a comment about my upcoming blog post and a reference to my recent blog post. Surprisingly to me, my views and read counts for my previous blog post spiked up again after this post. So I would say it was a success.
Unlike Instagram or Pinterest, you can be wordier with Facebook. Facebook tends to attract a slightly older and more loyal crowd who is willing to read more text. This may be due to the layout contrasts between the 3 platforms, but nevertheless it’s always wise to complement your message to the platform you are using. On Facebook, you can use longer text and videos as appropriate.
My takeaway from this experience:
I have a greater appreciation for brands and bloggers who maintain social media accounts on a daily basis. A photo or video that I take 2 seconds to look at can take the creator anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. It’s a lot of work. Now I understand why Social Media gurus are paid the big bucks. It takes time, money, and a constant draw on your creative abilities to execute good content.
At the end of the day, brands want engagement. My “little experiment” was done on my personal and private accounts so naturally engagement was low. Next time I create branded content, I will be prepared for what this truly entails and use content and engagement techniques that best complement the brand, the audience, and the platform I’m using.
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Jenkins School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
#luxemarketing #ncstateglm #luxury #lesmerveilleuses #laduree #socialmediamarketing #content #engagement #photofy #boomerang
