Over the course of seven weeks I have designed, researched, and created an entire social media campaign. Throughout the whole process I have had a detailed plan, with tasks, goals, and a series of deadlines to ensure I am keeping up with the obligations I set out for myself. Throughout the seven weeks there has been some bumps in the road due to the current pandemic but I am extremely happy to say that I have persevered and this Social Media Campaign process has been a success!
From week-to-week I have created a series of artifacts necessary to fully prepare for the social media campaign to launch successfully. Below you will find a detailed list of my journey, the artifacts created and the overall process of creating the Breaking Down PR social media campaign. Each section is accompanied by a weekly blog. You will also see that all links are highlighted blue for your convenience to click and explore these artifacts in greater length. Enjoy!
Week 1: Inspiration & Proposal
Blog Post 1: The Journey of Creating a Social Media Campaign
The Inspiration: Public Relations is not just a simple profession or skill to be carried out. I genuinely believe that it is something people should and could feel passionate about. My undergraduate degree was in media and communications, and now I am wrapping up my masters in Public Relations. I am inspired every day by the concept of relationship building, managing those relationships, and ensuring all voices are heard all the time. However, there is always some form of ambiguity surrounding the term, public relations. Whether it is people outside the profession or even those who are in the profession themselves. Unfortunately, public relations has many connotations attached to it, far to many to explain here. But that is exactly why I wanted to create something that could help people in public relations and those outside of it better understand what it is public relations is all about. The passion for wanting to help people understand what we do in public relations helped ignite the creation of the Breaking Down PR Social Media Campaign.
Project Proposal: I first developed a project proposal to share the significance of my social media campaign and used this proposal as a place to develop my initial objectives. Creating this project proposal allowed me to concentrate and focus on the bigger picture with accuracy and clarity to follow. When starting a new project, it can be easy getting lost in all of the creative ideas, however this allowed me a place to set a foundation, a true framework to see the campaign grow into what it is today. As this journey progressed in the content creation process, many of the initial ideas evolved or shifted to better suit the needs of the social media campaign.
Week 2: The Project Plan
Blog 2: Developing a Project Management Plan for Breaking Down PR
With a detailed project proposal showing what the social media campaign needed and how it would be executed, I then focused my time in creating a comprehensive project management plan. This plan would act as a detailed map to what needs to be done each week. From the research needed on creating content for the campaign, to target audience reports, a brand style guide, and more. By creating this detailed plan, it allowed me to focus on every single important piece to this campaign in an organized manner. Though there were some weeks where plans had to be revised and changed, this project management plan acted as a guide every step of the way.
Week 3: Developing a Brand Identity
Blog 3: Developing a Brand Identity
As excited as I was to start creating tangible content imagery, I knew I had to stick to the project plan. I dedicated this week to better understanding how to build a brand on social media from scratch. I spent time completing heavy research, adding to my evolving bibliography which has now turned into my own textbook of sorts. This week was crucial in better understanding the audience I wanted to reach, the brand I wanted to build, and most importantly the success of launching this social media campaign. I was able to create a complete brand identity report and brand image to help in the future creation of content for the campaign.
Week 4: User Research and Revisions
Blog 4: Review, Reflect, and Revise
A part of the initial research is being able to also understand the audience that the social media campaign is targeting. I spent a considerable amount of time this week looking into the target audience, competitors, and doing a lot of reflection over what has been created so far. Only half way through this seven week journey, I needed to be sure I was hitting the mark on everything necessary for the launch of Breaking Down PR. Thanks to the style guide and the well needed research on managing Instagram, I was able to find time to make a color pallet for the brand to follow on the social media page as well, along with the first promotional images.
Week 5: Curating a Content Factory
With the bulk of the research completed to better understand the target audience, and forming a cohesive brand identity; I now had time to focus on a fully structured content creation factory. I dedicated time to creating a list of content topics broken down by the week, and curated a list of images on Canva to be ready to send out within the first eleven weeks of the campaign as well. Before doing this, I also curated a trusted list of sources specifically for these images to be formed. Just about every single post will incorporate factual information and quotes, and the posts that will do this will always be accompanied by the correct source for the audience so that they know Breaking Down PR is sharing accurate information at all times.
Week 6: A Content Calendar and Reflections
Blog 6: The Reckoning of Breaking Down PR Social Media Campaign
Week six was the time of true reckoning for the Breaking Down PR social media campaign. By this time I had a few life situation’s go on that had dragged me away from my original plans. However, my spirit remained steadfast. I was able to reflect on the past work and found a few needed variables that required tweaking and more time developing. I appreciated this week especially because I learned a lot about myself and the delicacy of this great campaign. I was able to revise and finish a full eleven-week content calendar and created a separate content factory for Instagram stories as well.
Week 7: Wrap up & Launch Ready
Blog 7: Finishing Touches, Reflection, and Launch
The final week was comprised of making final edits to reports, finishing up with my annotated bibliography, and gearing up for the launch date for December 13th. Overall the social media campaign has grown into something wonderful and having spent this time reflecting, I am so excited to finally launch all of the content that has been created and to continue to nurture and see this project mature further.
The Media Relations Nomad 