Digital and Social Media

How to Brand Yourself

Emily Wade · Oct 10, 2020 · 1 Comment

A personal or business brand isn’t just a clever business name or stunning logo; it’s every element of your visual branding, marketing content and how you engage with your customers or clients at each point of contact – the whole package!

And, guess what? Even if you haven’t consciously set out to design your brand, you already have one. Chances are, it might not be as effective as it could be though.

⏸️

Pause, and ask yourself these questions before reading further:

What is your current brand or ‘personality’?
Have you thought consciously about developing your brand or has it just evolved, accidentally?
Is it consistent and recognisable?
Are you attracting the right audience?

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

Now that you have a clear idea of what your current ‘brand’ is (or isn’t) let’s dig a little deeper.

What exactly is a ‘brand’?

Simply, a brand is an ‘identity’ which is defined by businessdictionary.com as a “Unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors.”

A good brand is instantly recognisable, has a clearly defined product offering and is above all else, consistent. So, where do you start if you want to create a strong brand that attracts your target customer or audience? One of the best ways is to look at successful brands in your niche and learn from them.

Below, I look at the key ingredients for building a successful brand as demonstrated by Who Gives a Crap, who have managed to make the sale of environmentally friendly toilet paper (with a social conscience) into a unique, engaging and successful brand.

From the time they first launched their crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, Who Gives a Crap have had a clearly defined, engaging and well-targeted brand that just keeps on delivering! Before you keep reading, watch this video to see some of their clever branding in action…

Who Gives a Crap toilet paper – First Edition Video

So, what can we learn from the masterful branding of Who Gives a Crap?

Firstly, before you even start thinking about designing your brand and story, you must define your product and target customer.

Define your Product

If you are a service-based business, this step is just as important as for those running a product-based business. You need to spend time defining exactly what it is you do, what you sell and, most importantly, what makes your product or service unique compared to others in the marketplace. If you don’t have a well-defined product offering, potential customers will have no idea what you do, or sell!

Who Gives a Crap sell recycled toilet paper, and they’re not the only company who does so. The brand was launched on the back of a successful crowdfunding campaign in July 2012 after the three co-founders, Danny, Simon and Jehan, learnt that “2.3 billion people across the world don’t have access to a toilet… which means that around 289,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation.” The company sells 100% recycled toilet paper (via a mail subscription service) and donates 50% of their profits to “help build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world.”

One important thing to note here is that Who Gives a Crap has other products lines but toilet paper is their main product and marketing ‘hero’. Also, the fact that they are both socially and environmentally conscious is unique, and forms a very important part of their ‘brand story’ (more about that later).

When you think about your own business, what do you want customers to remember when they think of your brand? What is the main thing you do or sell? If you have a range of products, what is your ‘hero’ product? Or, what is it that you do best?

Define your Customer

You could say that everyone is a potential customer when you’re selling toilet paper and I’ve heard many small business owners say a similar thing about their product or service. But designing a brand that appeals to ‘all’ is virtually impossible. Some small business owners get stumped at this point and if that’s you, the first thing to ask yourself is who is most likely to buy your product? Often, it is a customer of similar profile to the business owner themselves, because many enterprises are born out of a passion or inspiration very close to the heart of the founder. So, there’s your starting point!

In the case of Who Gives a Crap, their visual branding and content is clearly targeted at 25-40 year-old professionals and/or parents with a social and environmental conscience. Yes, any brand will pick up customers outside their target demographic, but you should always have an idea of the age range, gender/s, interests and vocations of your ‘ideal’ customer when designing and marketing your brand. If you’re a visual thinker, it can help to create a character with all the attributes of your target customer, and even give them a name!

Photo by Jo shua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Once you have defined your customer, the real fun can begin…

Develop your Visual Branding

As the name suggests, visual branding consists of your logo, font/s, colour/s and how those elements are applied across your brand, from business cards, website design and social media content, to email signatures, stationery, packaging, and more.

Who Gives a Crap execute their visual branding with absolute precision. From online content, to the cardboard box that the product arrives in, a consistent brand image is present at every single interaction with their customer (or potential customer).

When you set out to create your logo, and choose your colours and fonts, a professional designer can be invaluable. The more information you can give them about your product and customer, the better the result is likely to be. If you’re not in a position to sub-contract a designer right now, a cheaper alternative is to crowd-source design services, using a platform such as DesignCrowd, or 99Designs. I won’t delve into detailed design tips here, but there’s more to come on this topic soon. For now, if you’re interested in doing your own research on visual branding, you could start with the 99Designs blog on Visual Identity.

Developing your Brand’s Personality through Engaging Content

Many business publications would call this section ‘marketing strategy’ or something similar, but I wanted to draw particular attention to the ‘tone’ of your written content because it’s absolutely crucial to developing a ‘personality’ for your brand.

Customers who feel they know a brand are much more likely to develop a trusting (and loyal) relationship with it.

Who Gives a Crap offers a perfect example of using an informal, friendly and engaging tone with a strong dose of humour in all of their written content. You can see it on their website, product packaging and shipping boxes! Not only is the content light-hearted, clever and funny, it delivers the right key messages to their customers time and again. This creates loyal customers who are so happy that they recommend Who Gives a Crap to their friends and family too! No-brainer, right? Well, almost. The truth is that most small businesses try to create engaging content, and many achieve this to some degree, but the greatest challenge is being able to engage your customer consistently. That is, through a consistent tone, consistent messaging and consistent placement.

If writing isn’t your strong point, a freelance writing professional with business experience can craft a solid communications strategy (and content) for you. If your budget doesn’t allow for that right now, immerse yourself in reading the content of brands you admire, and practice your own writing. Then, ask for feedback from trusted friends or family (who will be honest with you) and keep working at it.

When you start to develop a tone for your brand, focus more on writing as if you were having a friendly conversation with your customers in-person, rather than trying to impress them with your technical knowledge or extensive vocabulary. In most cases, writing in an overly formal or academic tone when you’re trying to market your business will serve to drive potential customers away or at the very least, bore them to tears!

What is your Story?

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Your brand’s story should start with your passion; whatever it was that inspired you to start a business in the first place. What was the gap in the market, or opportunity, that you saw? What makes you unique? Starting with a clearly identified need for your product or service offering will be key to the success of your marketing strategy, and your business. We’ve seen Facebook and Instagram follow Snapchat’s lead by highlighting their story features in recent times, because this is what users are craving from brands. Essentially, your brand’s story is everything that goes into running your business, both front-of-house, and behind-the-scenes. The more you can invite your potential (or existing) customers into a space where you share your process, from ideas-generation through to design, production and distribution, the more likely they are to trust you. Consumers are becoming more savvy and take online research seriously, often demanding this sort of intimate detail before making a buying decision.

Once you have defined your target market, and developed your story, creating a mission statement or tagline to clearly communicate your key offering should be easy. If not easy, it should at least narrow your options. The challenge in developing your tagline will be to keep it both descriptive, and concise. You will need to prioritise which information is most important to include here. Shopify has a Free Slogan Maker that might not give you the perfect tagline, but it could kick-start your brainstorming process!

The Importance of Consistency

I couldn’t resist giving this word a paragraph of its own, because it is just so important. Creating a cohesive, consistent and engaging brand ensures that customers will recall your key product offerings when they come to make buying decisions. Even more importantly, a memorable brand lends itself to word-of-mouth recommendations from existing customers, which is one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is.

Wait, that was too many words! What should I do again??

In a nutshell…

Infographic Created using Canva

Extra Resources

The complete story and website of Who Gives A Crap

There are some fantastic tips for developing your brand’s story at HubSpot.

Trevor Young (Digital Citizen/PR Warrior) and Neil Patel each have a wealth of knowledge and resources on branding and digital marketing that you can explore.

For information on branding and developing content, most social media scheduling tools have their own blog with useful tips and tricks, such as Hootsuite, Later, Sprout Social, and Planoly.

Online Trolling: Fighting the Good Fight

Emily Wade · Dec 7, 2019 · 1 Comment

The incident that inspired me to write about this topic wasn’t ‘internet trolling’ at all. A nine-year-old called it trolling though, and he had my attention immediately. On this day, my son had three friends at our house, and they were playing the open world video game Minecraft online. The four boys sat silently, side-by-side on the couch, and I was in the same room. After they had all put their iPads away, I noticed that one of them was crying in the next room. I asked him what was wrong. He replied that for the entire time they were on the iPads, one of the four boys had followed him (on Minecraft) and knocked over everything he had built. The result was that he hadn’t been able to finish anything. As the crying child explained this to me, another friend said, “yeah, he was trolling him.” I talked to the boys, calmed the one who was upset, and his friend apologised for targeting him. They went and played something else with no mention of the incident again. It may seem to be quite an insignificant event, but I found myself reflecting on what had happened later.

A few things shocked me about the situation. I know these children well; they’re ‘nice’ kids, and I was physically present in the room at the time but had no idea what was happening. After doing some research, I don’t think this behaviour constituted ‘trolling’ after all. It did highlight several issues that may be pertinent to these kids and their online lives as they get older though. It also prompted me to think about the ways our online and offline lives are often depicted as separate entities, when in fact, they’re not.

What is ‘internet trolling’?

We hear the word ‘trolling’ often now; in workplaces, schools, universities, and in print and online media. The term can pervade our daily conversations, and obviously, our kids have heard – and use – it too. But perceptions seem to vary greatly.

‘Internet trolling’ is a broad term with varied definitions. Naturally, you might think of a ‘troll’ as a creature originating in folklore, but modern versions of trolls are people who harass others online. Some sources define trolling as separate to cyber abuse and bullying, whereas others combine those behaviours under the same title. As with many internet phenomena, definitions vary greatly, and laws are still catching up.

Chen (2018) states that “the clash of definitions in the public and academic discourse has led to confusion and controversy over what “trolling” actually means. Is trolling just another word for online harassment or does it refer to a game of deception?” (p. 78). Furthermore, is it illegal to troll on the internet? The Australian Government’s eSafety Commissioner website confirms that “many forms of cyber abuse could be considered illegal under state or federal legislation.”

For example, under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 (‘the Act’) it is an offence to menace, harass or cause offence using a ‘carriage service’. It is also an offence under the Act to use a carriage service to make threats to kill or cause serious harm to a person, regardless of whether the person receiving the threat actually fears that the threat would be carried out.
These provisions could capture instances of menacing, harassing or offensive conduct and threats carried out using landlines, mobile phones (including via MMS, SMS) and the internet, including via emails and social media.
eSafety Commissioner (2019)

Chen (2018) explores the definitions further, finding two conflicting views. The majority view is that trolls are villains and antagonists, whose actions harm individuals and communities online. The minority view casts trolls “as (mostly) harmless pranksters who push the boundaries of taste and sensibility – acting upon the ethos that online interactions should not be taken seriously” (Chen 2018, p. 78). More practically, trolling is intentionally disruptive online behaviour designed to challenge, provoke, abuse, antagonise, deceive or harm others. It can be text- or image-based and is designed to elicit a response from the targeted person/s, with the impacts ranging from being mildly annoying to causing serious harm.

Why do people ‘troll’ others?

Buckels et al. (2017) relate trolling to the psychological tendencies of sadism, stating that trolls often underestimate the pain of others because of the pleasure it gives them. Ginger Gorman has examined the psychological profiles and motivations of those who troll and abuse others online in her book, Troll Hunting (Hardie Grant Books, London). Throughout the course of her extensive investigation, Gorman gets to know several ‘trolls’ with very different personality profiles and motivations. Those who feel the need to lash out at others online may be motivated by politics, racism, religion, or could be former victims of abuse themselves. At the most severe end of the spectrum are ‘trolls’ who fit the profile of a ‘psychopath’ whereas others cite boredom as a motivator, and don’t necessarily continue ‘trolling’ long term. Their true identities may surprise you too; imagine a white, middle class man with a wife and children who works full-time but ‘trolls’ in his spare time. Perhaps most surprisingly, Gorman states that ‘trolls’ are “[F]ar from being ill-informed, this is an intelligent cohort who read and retain information, stacking up the facts and twisting them in the service of intolerance and aggression,” (Gorman 2019, p. 50).

Fighting back

Although it is illegal to abuse someone online in Australia, law enforcement agencies don’t always act fully on reported incidents – or worse, dismiss them completely. Trolling or cyber abuse victims may be told to ‘stay offline’. Staying offline may seem like a simple directive, but it’s not practical in a world where we rely on the internet and ‘being online’ for work, social connections, and other opportunities. For many victims, staying offline ‘would make their lives worse’ (Citron, cited in Gorman, 2019).

So, if avoiding the online world isn’t practical, what can we do to combat cyber abuse?

As Gorman so aptly puts it, ‘this is a human problem, with a human solution’ (2019, p.256). Contrary to popular rhetoric, social media isn’t the problem, although it can amplify some of humanity’s darkest sentiment. Problematic ideas and behaviours already existed offline, long before the internet came to be. This is a social problem.

One of my eldest son’s favourite YouTubers is ‘Unspeakable’ (Nathan). You will often hear Unspeakable refer to trolling in his videos but as his YouTube bio states, it’s all about being able to ‘see me pull pranks on my friends’. The reason I raise this is because Unspeakable is an excellent example of someone who has built an online identity around positive narratives and an acute awareness of his (very young) audience. He reveals little private information online, using his pseudonym or first name only and avoids profanity when streaming or filming. The way he has built his profiles and interacts with his fans and community of friends online exhibits many hallmarks of good digital citizenship; something that can be a powerful antidote to cyberhate.

There are many other high-profile examples of good digital citizenship too. One of those is the #CelebratingWomen movement, initiated by Dr Kirstin Ferguson, Deputy Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In 2017, Ferguson wanted to do something about the hatred and misogyny she was witnessing online. Ferguson is quoted as saying that “without any clear plan or idea of what a campaign might look like, I made a public commitment last year. I was going to see if I could celebrate two women, from all walks of life and from anywhere in the world, every single day of 2017” (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2018). The campaign was highly successful in celebrating women’s achievements and has resulted in Ferguson writing a book with Catherine Fox, titled Women Kind. This has also highlighted how positive messages can be amplified on social media in the same way as negative ones can be.

As individuals, we can all be a part of this amplification process, leading by example through positive online engagement.

Besides being positive and proactive online, there are other strategies we can use to protect our personal information online, and deal with cyber abuse if/when it happens. The eSafety Commissioner’s website has many resources for a variety of uses and targeted to specific demographics. You can find tips for protecting your personal information here.

If you have experienced some form of trolling or cyber abuse, there are some basic steps you can follow:

Don’t respond
You might have heard the phrase ‘don’t feed the trolls’ – it’s a good rule to follow. If you react swiftly, chances are you will be charged with emotion and your words are likely to ‘fan the flame’.
Collect evidence
Before you block, or mute and/or delete anything, save the evidence through screenshots and the like. It’s important to do this straight away because posts and comments can quickly be deleted.
Block and Report
You can block or mute the user and if they appear under a different user profile, block or mute them again. Report the post/s or incident to the social media platform on which it occurred. You can also report online abuse to the eSafety Commissioner.
Find more information and seek legal advice
Once again, the eSafety Commissioner has a number of useful links here. There is also specific information about what to do in different cases (ie. image-based abuse, domestic and family violence, threats of violence and more).

When talking to kids about online safety, it’s important to tell them that they should always report incidents to a trusted adult. Talk regularly about your online interactions, and theirs, and discuss strategies for dealing with ‘nasty comments’ or threats. At the same time, putting undue attention on potential negative online interactions may cause anxiety for some kids so it’s important to empower them with as much age-appropriate knowledge as possible around the positive ways they can make, share, learn and connect with others online. Google has some great videos, games, and other learning resources on their site, ‘Be Internet Awesome’. My son’s school has featured a fact sheet from this site in their newsletter titled Be Internet Brave, which lists five tips for reporting ‘things that make you feel uncomfortable or worse’ to a teacher, principal, or parent.

‘Be Internet Awesome‘ Promotional Video by Google

I am a huge advocate for talking about issues such as trolling and cyber abuse so that in the future, there may be better ways for dealing with them. There’s no doubt that these are complex, multi-faceted issues and no single measure will fix them or ensure everyone’s safety. Debates are ongoing about balancing filtering and deleting of defamatory, hateful or threatening comments, while protecting free speech rights. There is also a long way to go for governments, law enforcement agencies and societies in general to legislate and protect against online abuse. Despite this, I believe advances are being made and the more that we can promote positive digital citizenship through education and action, the closer we will be to finding a better set of solutions.

As we’ve seen here, trolling definitions can run the full gamut of behaviour from relatively harmless online pranks to persistent, ‘predator-trolling’ that can result in real-life harm. I want to make it very clear that I am not an expert on trolling, cyberhate, or online abuse, but this little research and writing exercise has broadened my view on the topic somewhat, and I hope it has done the same for you.

I’ve discovered some fantastic resources that are helping me to teach my children to become good digital citizens. This enables them to protect themselves online – and call-out bad behaviour when they see it. There is a list of these resources below and if you know of others, please share them in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Resources

Books

Gorman, G 2019, Troll Hunting, Hardie Grant Books, London, UK.

Websites

eSafety Commissioner< https://www.esafety.gov.au/>

Be Internet Awesome with Google <https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us>

Online News and Articles

‘Internet trolls are not who I thought – they’re scarier’ by Ginger Gorman (Feb 2019) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-02/internet-trolls-arent-who-i-thought-ginger-gorman-troll-hunting/10767690

ONLINE HATE: What is the law around internet trolls and trolling? The Sun, UK (Sept 2019) https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9915679/what-is-the-law-around-internet-trolls-and-trolling/

Victoria’s new anti-vilification bill strikes the right balance in targeting online abuse – The Conversation (Sept. 2019) https://theconversation.com/victorias-new-anti-vilification-bill-strikes-the-right-balance-in-targeting-online-abuse-123014

A selection of articles on trolling (63 articles) on The Conversation (links to various sources) https://theconversation.com/au/topics/trolling-3815

Online trolling used to be funny, but now the term refers to something far more sinister – The Conversation (Feb 2019) https://phys.org/news/2019-02-online-trolling-funny-term-sinister.html

Scott Morrison declares war on social media trolls – SBS News (May 2019) https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scott-morrison-declares-war-on-social-media-trolls

References

Buckels EE, Trapnell PD, Andjelovic T, Paulhus DL 2019, ‘Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgment’, Journal of Personality, no. 87, pp. 328–340, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12393

Chen, Y 2018, ‘“Being a Butt While on the Internet”: Perceptions of What Is and Isn’t Internet Trolling’, 81^st Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science &Technology, Canada, pp. 76-85.

eSafety Commissioner 2019, Adult Cyber Abuse, Australian Government eSafety Commissioner, retrieved 28 October 2019, <https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/adult-cyber-abuse>

eSafety Commissioner 2019, Classroom Resources, Australian Government eSafety Commissioner, retrieved 7 December 2019, < https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/classroom-resources>

eSafety Commissioner 2019, ‘Protect your personal information, Australian Government eSafety Commissioner, retrieved 7 December 2019, < https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/how-to/protect-personal-information>

Ferguson, K 2018, ‘#CelebratingWomen shows the power of women boosting women’, The Sydney Morning Herald, weblog post, 20 September, retrieved 7 December 2019, <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/celebratingwomen-shows-the-power-of-women-boosting-women-20180919-p504s2.html>

Google, Be Internet Awesome, Google, retrieved 7 December 2019, < https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us>

Gorman, G 2019, Troll Hunting, Hardie Grant Books, London, UK.

YouTube 2019, Unspeakable, YouTube, retrieved 7 December 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwIWAbIeu0xI0ReKWOcw3eg>

Featured Image by Hannah Wei on U n splash

‘Fake it ’til you make it’: Taking the First Step Towards Publishing Your Work Online.

Emily Wade · Mar 11, 2019 · 4 Comments

Are you terrified about publishing your work online? Do you know that you ‘should’ be putting content out there, but…well, it’s never quite perfect?

Many students, professionals, small business owners and freelancers struggle with this exact problem. We all know how important it is to develop a personal brand and/or online portfolio because today’s job market is so competitive, but ‘just publish it’ seems so much easier to say than it is to do! I was prompted to reflect on this through my teaching work in Digital Media at Deakin University.

Our Digital Media units encourage students to embrace the philosophy of Media Studies 2.0. which is based on students learning about digital media by immersing themselves in it; experimenting, creating, sharing, and connecting with others online. Senior Lecturer in Communication, Adam Brown, describes this highly practical approach as ‘learning by doing’.

I was brainstorming ways that I might be able to inspire confidence in students when the phrase ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ popped into my head. With several connotations and potential origins, ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ draws parallels to the concept of ‘learning by doing’. It’s also based on a similar premise to that of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which promotes the exchange of negative thoughts and patterns (bad habits) for positive ones (good habits), in order to affect change. In other words, ‘you are what you think’.

The more I thought, the more examples of ‘learning by doing’ or ‘faking it ‘til I made it’ I could identify throughout my own career. Two of these are below:

Starting my Journey as a Food and Product Photographer

In 2008, I had just bought my first DSLR camera and started experimenting with it at home. I was particularly interested in exploring macro photography and started creating artistic photos with natural elements (leaves, feathers, shells etc.) or food as subjects, but hadn’t engaged in any formal photography education yet. One day, my ex-husband (then, fiancé and business partner) told me that he’d volunteered my services as a food photographer for a major hotel group in Melbourne that he was doing signage for.

‘You did what?’ I said. ‘I can’t do that – I’m not ready!’

He assured me that anything I could produce was better than the amateur food photographs that the hotel group was using at the time, and if it didn’t work out, I could just waive my fee. Well, I went into full-on research and practice mode. Despite preparing as best I could, I was completely terrified when I turned up for my first shoot, but I concealed my nerves by putting on a big smile and greeting the Head Chef confidently. The session went as well as it could have.

Afterwards, I spent a lot of time editing (to compensate for styling, lighting and exposure errors) which served to quickly develop my Photoshop skills, and produce a more professional looking result. The client was happy, and I continued to shoot their food for several years afterwards.

As time went on, I upgraded my lighting equipment and honed my styling and photography skills so that I was able to spend a lot less time editing afterwards. I also went on to complete professional photography training and picked up many other food and product photography clients along the way. In the beginning, the only thing that got me through was a positive attitude, motivation to succeed and a good dose of adrenaline!

My First Role in Social Media Management

Around mid-2017 I was studying a Graduate Diploma of Communications, and one of my then teachers, Adam Brown referred stuart-hinds.com to me – they wanted someone to manage their social media and online marketing strategy. When I first read the offer, I was excited but unsure that I could deliver on the brief.

Despite my initial reservations, I contacted Stuart Hinds (an internationally-recognised Soft Tissue Therapist and Educator) anyway. We met for an interview, then he and his business partner confirmed that they wanted me to do the job. I immediately started researching, auditing their current social media accounts and developing a new marketing strategy.

It was an exciting opportunity given that they were just about to re-brand and expand their product offerings, and although their social media presence was minimal, Stuart Hinds himself had an established professional reputation in Australia and overseas. They also didn’t have a formalised social media marketing strategy at the time, so it was the perfect opportunity to develop something from the start, and (thankfully) see it grow so strongly as a result of my work.

I was lucky to have extensive small business and sales experience to draw on when I began this role, and my job-specific skills developed over time.

Often, there’s no substitute for being able to learn a set of skills in a practical setting. I strongly believe that if I had tried to learn the above skills in a traditional educational setting (through theory and simulation), then put them into practice later, it would have resulted in much lesser outcomes.

If you’re feeling unsure about how or where to start, I encourage you to just ‘start’. All you need to do is embrace the challenges and opportunities that come your way, work hard and learn from your mistakes.

Even if you feel like you’re ‘faking it’ to begin with, you’ll ‘make it’ in the end!

Have you got any examples of ‘faking it ’til you made it’ to share? I’d love to hear them in the comments below, or head over to Twitter.

Visit my page on Unsplash or Flickr to download a selection of my images, freely available for reuse.

Can you Really Gain 100 Instagram Followers in 24 Hours?

Emily Wade · Jun 7, 2017 · Leave a Comment

I joined Instagram to promote my freelance photography business in 2015. Initially, my use was quite sporadic, but from the 1^st of January, 2017 I started posting to Instagram every single day. I was committed to growing my following organically, with a focus on engagement rather than follower count. But, the constant barrage of marketing spam thrown at me promoting follower gains and increased profits started to wear me down. The ‘noise‘ was incredible. Would a large follower count really increase my profit potential and lead to increased job bookings? Was there a legitimate and easy way to gain more followers quickly?

I had researched Instagram growth-hacking techniques and came to the conclusion that for my purposes, having large numbers of followers would not increase my job bookings, given that most methods of quickly gaining followers would attract fake and/or non-genuine accounts. However, I did occasionally succumb to the psychological high when one of my images attracted a large number of likes and/or some nice, genuine comments. I was finding it really hard to resist the bright lights of celebrity-like fame on Instagram, which was quickly starting to feel like a popularity contest. I could easily argue away these desires using my logic and intelligence, but they would return intermittently… Eventually, curiosity got the better of me! I decided to run my own little experiment based on a theory (or group of similar theories) that claim an Instagram user can gain 100 followers in 24 hours. I figured that I had nothing to lose, and it was worth investigating, for entertainment and information purposes. After all, why miss out on an effective marketing strategy, if it is that easy to implement? And, if in fact, it does actually work!

The experiment details

I never intended to write a blog post when I first decided to test this theory, so the numbers quoted below are all approximate and designed to give an impression of what happened without getting bogged down in the technical details. Prior to carrying out this experiment, my Instagram follower count was at about 260, and I was following around 600 accounts. I had always carefully chosen the accounts that I followed based on the fact that I liked their content rather than just blindly ‘following-back’, but on this day I threw caution to the wind, so to speak. On the evening of February the 16^th, I started seeking out some accounts with large followings that had a similar target market to mine (my competitors) and started following their followers like crazy! I followed approximately 600 extra accounts throughout that evening and the next day. I took the total number of accounts that I was following to approximately 1200. Within an hour of my sudden increased activity and large number of new follows, there was a marked increase in the number of accounts liking my photos. If you scroll down my Instagram page (@macro_grace) to the dates February 16^th, 17^th and 18^th you will see that images I posted on those days got 154 likes, 167 likes and 193 likes respectively. Both before and after conducting this experiment, the average likes my images receive is about 52, ranging from 30 to 90 likes each. Along with this increased ‘liking’ activity, my follower count also increased over the next 24-48 hours until it reached 377 (at its’ highest count). This means that my follower count did increase by 90 and maintain that increase after an initial peak of 117 extra followers.

So, the experiment worked, right? It is possible to gain 100 followers in a very short space of time.

The short answer is yes. The more complicated answer is, no.

The clincher is that although my follower count did increase dramatically, it then dropped to about 350 and has remained stagnant at that count for about 6 weeks (with small daily fluctuations, but the base number remains roughly the same). Prior to the experiment, my organic follower increase was sitting at about 2-3 per day: a slow and steady rate. Since the experiment, I have continued to gain between 2 and 5 followers per day, but I have also been losing followers at approximately the same rate. A quick calculation, using average figures, means that if I had continued posting and engaging without carrying out this experiment, my follower count should be anywhere between 352 (if gaining 2/day) and 386 (if gaining 3/day) now. As I write this, my actual follower count is 357.

In short, if I had not carried out this experiment, my current follower count would be almost exactly the same as it is today (46 days later). The true gain for my Instagram account was nil. I am hoping that sometime in the very near future, my follower count will start to gradually and organically increase again. I will then be able to put this experiment well and truly behind me.

Some companies have developed apps to carry out this type of activity on an automated basis. My increased activity would have attracted some of these ‘bots’ and explains the spike in liking activity. It also partially explains that the new ‘followers’ I gained over that period of time were mostly non-genuine; either automated, fake or spam accounts. Many of these ‘followers’ un-followed my account again shortly after.

Where to from here?

The fact is that the long-term effects from this experiment for my account should be negligible, but engaging in some growth-hacking techniques (especially automated options) for gaining followers in the longer term can actually have a negative impact on your account and reduce your credibility. It should also be noted here that some third-party apps operate contrary to Instagram’s Terms of Use. See Instagram’s Platform Policy here.

There are many variables that have not been taken into account here, and this was not a scientific experiment by any stretch of the imagination, but in my humble opinion, the best way to gain quality followers is to continue posting quality content on a regular basis. You also need to integrate your Instagram activity with a comprehensive online and offline marketing strategy and keep the focus on producing quality work and making customers happy!

Author’s Update (September 2019):

I have now deleted this Instagram account. I don’t think it ever recovered from the experiment, and the pressure of posting ‘perfect’ images everyday became counter-productive to my work and overall business goals. I really enjoyed the ‘Insta-break’ and it certainly helped to put things in perspective for me; being active on social media can present so many valuable opportunities for marketing, collaboration and social connection but if it becomes a negative influence or overwhelming, there is no harm in taking a break!

Header Image: Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Building Your Online Identity

Emily Wade · Apr 12, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Is your online-self a true representation of your offline-self’? Are you strategic about what you post online? And have you considered what impact your online profile, or lack thereof, could have on future job opportunities? We all have that friend who is constantly posting photos on social media about their perfect lifestyle, house, kids or marriage but the offline truth doesn’t seem to be quite so rosy. Without diving into a deep human psychology and behaviour discussion, it’s interesting to consider the conscious and unconscious actions that shape our online identities, and increasingly, the influence that our online portrayal of self can have on both personal credibility and career outlook.

I have begun a process of carefully planning and creating my online identity for professional purposes, and want to share my experiences and insights so far; some of the lessons I have learned along the way may also help you to create and leverage your own online presence.

What is online identity?

The notion of online identity has far-reaching effects beyond the basic expression-of-self in the online environment. In simple terms the Oxford English Dictionary defines identity as ‘the characteristics determining who or what a person is’. Online identity can be defined by our combined activities in social networking, building profiles, friending, liking, commenting, sharing, tagging, posting content and participating in online communities (Poletti & Rak, 2014).

The expression of our identity now extends beyond our offline activities to an accessible online environment, where the creation of content and social profiles is part of a ‘performance’ of selfhood. That is to say, ‘online social networking behaviour is as performative as ‘real life’ acts’ (Poletti & Rak, 2014). I subscribe to the belief that the expression of our online-self is consistent with our offline persona, and inevitably, although our online activities may be fragmented and multiplied, our online representations of self are fragments of the same core persona (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015).

In the process of creating an online identity for business purposes, it’s important to consider the types of content that should be shared with your professional network, and which things might be better kept for personal profiles. This isn’t to say that personal opinions or humorous content should never be shared on your professional profiles. Sometimes, sharing the occasional personal post can give your online personality a touch of humanity ’and invite others to engage with you. There is a fine line here though; a good test is to consider if you would relate the same opinion or joke to any single member of your professional network if you were speaking to them in person. If you would feel uncomfortable doing that, it’s probably not a good idea to share it with them online. This is one of the reasons why it may be very important for you to create separate personal and professional online profiles.

It is important to qualify here that choosing which content you post online is not inauthentic; it is a calculated adaptation of information to suit the audience. We do this in exactly the same way offline when we adapt our topics of conversation to suit those we are speaking to. The information that we disclose to a best friend would most likely be quite different to that shared with a client or manager.

When you have multiple active social and professional profiles, it is good practice to get into the habit of double-checking that you are logged into the correct profile before publishing any post!

Creating an online identity

I first consciously started creating my own online identity in August 2007 when I registered my personal Facebook profile. I was a late adopter of social media and the last of my peer-group to join. Some of my friends had been active on sites such as Facebook and MySpace for a few years before I decided to join. I was concerned about privacy and didn’t see any personal benefit for joining. Eventually, peer pressure persuaded me to join Facebook, mainly for the purposes of photo sharing with my current friendship-group.

To give you a starting point for creating your own professional online identity, I have made a Slideshare presentation illustrating the framework of profiles that I have created in my own name, and in two business names; ‘Macro Grace’, which is my photography business, and this blog, ‘Brave Little Pig’. I have focused on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, a customised Website and Twitter for the most part. I have also got accounts registered with YouTube and Soundcloud for the purposes of sharing content related to both of my businesses. I have followed all of the principles outlined in the infographic just mentioned to create my profiles. The platforms that you choose to use for your personal brand or business is largely dependent on the industry you work in. For example, many photographers will create a personal website to display their portfolio, along with Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr accounts. The latter two are formats that lend themselves to displaying photography because they have a strong visual focus. Today, it is important to be present and active across a variety of platforms but I believe that it is better to be active and engaged on one or two, rather than present and inactive on many. Having said that, it is still worthwhile reserving accounts in your business or personal names (or both) on any platform that you can realistically foresee using in the future. This means that no-one else will be able to register that name while you hold it (check Terms and Conditions of individual sites; some have rules about how long you can have a registered name that is inactive). Of course, if you try to register an account in your personal name and find it is taken, search for alternatives that still look professional with a minimum of compromise. The name of your accounts may become important later if you get more serious about SEO. For example, when I decided to register a Twitter account in the name of Emily Wade, I couldn’t (it was already registered by someone else), but I found that EmilyGraceWade was still available. This is preferable to choosing a name such as Emily2576 or Emily_virgo11. When you are interacting online, your username will often appear automatically in messages and tweets you send out, so if it looks professional, so do you!

Top 5 Tips for Building Quality Social Media Profiles

Some years later, I began to build more social networking profiles with the core purpose of improving SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) for my freelance photography business. My efforts to create a professional online identity have been slow but strategic, and everything that I post online has been carefully considered to align with my personal and professional values. I prefer to post images and other content that I have created, or on subjects that I am genuinely interested, sourced from quality content-providers. I take pride in my work and always strive to create aesthetically pleasing publications. These high personal standards have admittedly slowed my online profile building. The infographic (left/above) lists five key principles that I have applied to building my profiles across multiple platforms. Have you applied any of these to your own profile building yet?

Moving beyond quality profiles to the world of creating and connecting

Creating good social and business profiles is only the first, small step in a process of building a robust professional network. It is certainly a necessary element in providing ‘social proof’ of employability (Guiseppi, 2016), but only forms part of the online identity equation. The next part of the equation; producing content and making connections, even has benefits beyond the professional realm. As Gauntlett (2011) argues in his book, Making is Connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0, that although the majority of people are consumers in this digital world, the tools available for individuals to be able to make and share creative work online can lead to connections and community-building in new ways, which in turn can lead to increased happiness and self-esteem. Gauntlett says, ‘The ‘making and doing’ culture does require a bit more effort – but it comes with rich rewards.’ Possibly one of the most exciting aspects of this theory is that the ways in which these connections may manifest and the opportunities that could arise are largely unpredictable.

I posted a poll on Twitter recently (below) to gauge my peers’ attitudes to the importance of professional profiles and quality content. Thirty-eight respondents overwhelmingly agreed that both are equally important.

Which is more important for building a professional and credible Digital Identity? #ALC708 #ALC203
— Emily Wade (@EmilyGraceWade) April 5, 2017

Ticking off one aspect of creating a professional online identity doesn’t automatically lead to career opportunities. The subject of content creation is one that enters online discussions daily, in the form of blog posts, social media posts (usually with the purpose of marketing a business or service) and forum discussions. This article from Smart Company discusses the large proportion of marketing budgets that is now spent on creating content, and how the focus on digital marketing (which includes email, social media and various forms of content) is driving businesses forward; when I shared a link to the above-mentioned article on Twitter it attracted a tweet of agreement from a fellow student who said: ‘There is a saying in my office that content is king’. These kinds of discussions highlight the increasing awareness among business owners and employees alike that creating quality content is essential for promoting a personal or company brand.

After discussing the equal importance of building profiles and creating content online, I hope I have inspired you to continue your professional online identity building with renewed strategy and positivity. My personal focus now rests with developing a regular schedule of posting and engaging online that is both consistent and sustainable in the long term. There is a lot more to come on this journey, such as the types of content to share, best times to post, how to use scheduling tools and develop marketing plans. So, stay tuned!

References

Gauntlett, D., (2011), Making is Connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0, Cambridge: Polity.

Guiseppi, M., (2016), Mind Your Online Reputation: The personal branding social proof paradigm and two little-known ways to master it. Career Planning & Adult Development Journal, 32 (2), 101 – 106.

Poletti, A. & Rak, J. (2014), Identity Technologies: constructing the self online. The University of Wisconsin Press.

Oxford Living English Dictionaries (2017), https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ Last accessed 9/04/17

Sandy, C.J., Gosling, S.D., & Durant, J (2013). Predicting consumer behaviour and media preferences: the comparative validity of personality traits and demographic variables. Psychology and Marketing, 30 (11), 937-949.

Chamorro-Premuzic,T., (2015), How different are your online and offline personalities? The Guardian (online) https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/sep/24/online-offline-personality-digital-identity?CMP=share_btn_tw Last accessed 9/04/17.

Cover Image: Adobe Stock