Kat Brady (Syracuse, NY) —
Background
The reason I chose to design this meme is because I feel it addresses a very relatable issue for a lot of college students at the moment. Being a senior, I know that a lot of my peers are trying to be as social as possible, especially with Graduation swiftly approaching. It is at that point in the semester where people still have work to complete but do not want to sacrifice the time they have left with their friends; hence, the inspiration behind my meme. The idea of your friend saying they cannot go out because they have work to do, meanwhile you probably have just as much work, is pretty relatable to students right now. It shows the struggle that is sympathizing with your friends’ workload while trying to make as many memories at school as possible.
Objective
I set out to receive over 500 hundred views on Imgur, while also utilizing other platforms to share my image (including Twitter and Instagram).
Meme
Twitter Webcard
It's all fun and games until you're the one with the exams and papers due during the week #help
— Kat Brady (@KatBrady02) April 10, 2018
Twitter Ads Engagement
Final Engagement Analysis
According to my objective, my campaign was technically successful. My meme received 521 Imgur views and 1,658 impressions on Twitter. Obviously I am thrilled that this was my first attempt to achieve such a goal, and the results were not at all concerning. However, I did run into some errors that I believe may have effected my campaign, which I will be wary of in the future.
I initially uploaded my Twitter Webcard on April 4th, and it had been up there for around 24 hours before I realized that the webcard was not properly linked to Imgur; therefore, any views that it had received were not contributing to my overall number. I decided to take it down in order to fix the problem, and wait a few days to repost so that the audience may have forgotten what they have already seen. There is no way for me to be certain, but I do believe that the fact that my meme had already been posted to twitter limited the amount of clicks I received the second time around. This is of course no one’s fault but my own, but it was a valuable lesson to learn for the future if I ever run a social media campaign again.
In terms of what did work, I truly believe the biggest asset to this campaign was the meme itself. I had a lot of people approach me in person to tell me how relatable the content was to them, and even how they could sense my own personality behind it which made them enjoy it that much more. I think the only thing I would have changed about the meme would have been the picture I used under the text. It was from the 2017 Oscars, and while I find Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling timeless, I think a more timely photo with similar expressions – maybe from a popular TV show right now or event – would have been more effective.
Ultimately, I learned from this experience that there is no such thing as too much posting, especially when it comes to teasing a campaign you plan on putting out. Additionally, be smart about what you upload. If you are going to be posting similar content throughout the span of the week, it is definitely smart to strategically write your captions, schedule your posts, etc. I value Imgur way more then I initially did at the start of this course, and I look forward to utilizing it in future projects.