My Google Analytics has shown me that my audience has yet to take off and that people are more interested in my homework post than my content posts. Google Analytics has shown me that no one is interested in my lucid dream blog content and that my main traffic is from my short essay. I was pleasantly surprised that I had eight recurring visitors but my Google Analytics shows that they didn’t hang around long. According to my Google Analytics, I need to up my marketing plan to get more of an audience. The marketing plan I talked about in my last Process Post for week 9 would fix most of the problems with my audience retention and my redesign plans would also help people be less confused with my site.
After reading the required readings for this week I found a solution to many of the problems I have can be solved using SEO. In the article 15 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO the author Sam Hollingsworth, says “SEO Builds Trust & Credibility,… is the Best Way to Understand the Voice of the Consumer,… Means a Better User Experience,… [and] Local SEO Means Increased Engagement, Traffic & Conversions.” All of these things are the things my website needs help with. If all of this is true my updated marketing plan will include learning SEO. I will probably not update my website any time soon as I now need to learn some new software and will make a big update later. By the time I update my website, there will be no more confusion about what my website content is and the right audience will be directed to my website because of this. Look forward to the update and I’ll see you later.
I do not have a marketing plan as I only planned to do this website as a hobby and for school. The only active marketing for my website was telling my friends and family about it. I also made a logo that I thought was cute and put it on my private Instagram. As I did not plan on a lot of traffic on my website monetization did not even cross my mind. If I were to make a marketing plan I would probably post a few of my dream blog posts on Reddit and post my mini assignments on a public Instagram. I would have also made art to go with my post and post those on Instagram as well. The last thing I would have done is fixed my home page to make more sense and not be as hectic. If I had gone with this plan I would have considered monetizing my website with gaming ads and sleep products. This is all theoretical as monetizing my website seems like too much of a bother for a hobby.
In the transcript of a podcast by George Philip, Jennifer Anne Lazo, Rooham Jamali, and Rudy Al Jaroodi they talk about an experiment they ran to see how just about everything leaves a digital footprint nowadays. The narrator at one point during this podcast had stated, “The findings from our interviews made us realize that a lot of people mentioned Facebook or Google Maps as a form of Digital Trail they were creating. But most, like Amanda, were pretty unaware of the extent of their Digital Trails extending to their daily use of contactless cards and the majority of applications on their phones.” I found myself in this sentence as I also had no idea just how far my digital breadcrumbs reached. Before reading this transcript I would have said my digital footprint would just be my YouTube and school work, however, now I would say my digital footprint is all over the place. If my bus card, debit card, and two credit cards are part of my digital footprint as well as my Google Maps searches one could probably map out my entire university life. This podcast opened my eyes to how much of my life is on the internet. I would say I am a private person and have not personally put myself out on the internet so this realization really shook me, as I am really careful when it comes to my information on the internet. For example, I have yet to like or comment on any videos on YouTube because my name is connected to my YouTube and I have never posted a picture of myself on a non-private Instagram account. This podcast made me realize I shouldn’t be so scared of the internet as I aready have a large digital persona.
In this post, I explore how to choose a medium for your message and the importance of using channels to distribute your message to your audience.
Choosing Your Medium
“Types of media”
Upon googling “types of media”, you will discover that definitions and descriptions of types of media that exist in the world vary significantly from source to source.
Just look at this section that was the second item to show up on my google search:
After reviewing the various types described in these search results, I realized that boxing and organizing types is unnecessary.
Media, after all, is just the plural form of the noun medium which Oxford Languages defines as “an agency or means of doing something.”
After all,
The medium is the message
Marshall McCluhan
In other words, you must craft your own form of media to communicate your message.
Crafting Your Own Form of Media
To craft your own form of media, I recommend you examine three elements, the message itself, yourself as the messenger, and your audience as the recipient.
To review these elements ask questions such as:
In what ways could I share this message?
How does this message want to be shared?
What is the broader purpose of this message I am sending?
How have others previously communicated a message like this? Could they have done it better?
Are there conventions for messages such as this? Are they ideal?
How can I make this message uniquely my own?
If I could do anything to share this message how would I share it?
What am I capable of doing to communicate this message?
How can I compromise between my own ability and my ideal for sending this message?
How does the audience want to receive this message?
What do I want the audience to do upon receiving this message?
How is the audience capable of receiving this message?
After asking questions like these (note that you are most certainly not limited to these or required to answer all of these), choose your medium. Then take action to craft it.
Selecting Channels
What a Channel Is
When I hear the term “channels”, I immediately think of television channels. Although those are most certainly types of channels, the type of channels we are looking at here is broader.
Here, we are going to define channels as paths that we can use to enable our content to reach our audience.
Channels themselves are too media, however, they are different than the form of media described above in that we are going to be using them to direct our audience to our message, whereas previously we were using our medium to direct our message to our audience.
The purpose of channels is reaching our audience so they can connect with our message.
Choosing Channels
To choose channels, we need to answer the question “what is the best way to get our audience to reach our content?”
Sometimes, the best channel is by talking directly to people and asking them to interact with our content. Other times it is best to simply let the content exist and be found by others.
Channels again come down to the sender, the receiver, and the message. Examining these three elements will allow you to choose the best channel for your content.
Media and Channels
To choose your form of media and your form of channel, you need to examine the sender, the audience, and the message.
In examining these items, you will discover a distinct medium you need to create to embody your message and channels you can use to spread your message to your audience.
Communication is an art form. Practicing and iterating on messaging is the best way to improve.
This week we had Darren and Sarah from Capulet Communications to share about affordable marketing in a multi-channel universe with us in class.
I worked in a PR agency as an intern for five months last summer. I mainly had to do clippings for our clients, mainly luxury hotels and resorts. I scan newspapers, magazines and screenshot online articles, social media posts when they got coverages. I realise that almost all our clients have several social media platforms to publicise themselves, mostly Instagram and WeChat (for the Chinese market). Part of my job includes helping the clients to look for influencers that match their brand images, and I realise that most of them are active on multiple social media platforms to develop their online self. Most influencers are active on Instagram as a platform to interact with their fans and audiences, while they use websites or YouTube channels as a relatively passive platform to allow audiences to know more about their work and private life. This is indeed a great way to increase its traffic.
There are a growing number of brands who rely on social media to expand their influences and reach a greater variety of audiences, even for reputable hotels who have a long history of development. They use attractive images, usually instagrammable spots in the hotels, and uses short captions to attract people’s attention. People now prefer bite-sized information rather than wordy passages, it is challenging for the PR to bring out the distinctive features and hotels’ selling points by just a few sentences when drafting for captions. There is so much information online and everyone can place ads, thanks to Google and Facebook. PR must, therefore, develop a gimmick or something authentic that creates discussion in our society.
If marketers and PR only stick with safe options, they would always be mediocre. Darren shared a quote today in class – “Risky is safe, safe is risky.” This not only applies to marketing, but also to our lives. We should take a step forward to leave our comfort zones, make bold moves and risky decisions to stand out from the crowd.
