'how to hack it'

follow my progress as I develop a way to disrupt my chosen social media - caroline straford // s3720007 // instagram.com/howtohackit_

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Final Look at my Instagram account!

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Potential Changes? Would I have done anything differently?

Looking back on this task, I asked myself, if I had to do it all over again, is there anything I would do differently? There are definitely some things I learnt throughout the process, and would have liked to implicate from the start, however the learning aspect of this task was extremely important. The point of the task was for me to learn as I go and therefore show my followers what I am learning each week. One thing I may have done differently, would be to create a larger colour palette for my design. I love neutral colours, but I may have restricted myself a bit too much using the nude colour for my logo and my text posts. So if I was to do it again, I may add some pastel pink, a blush colour and maybe some more earthy tones. I’m very happy with the font that I chose for the logo and I wouldn’t change that. I potentially would change the layout of the logo, including maybe a circle, or a small illustration. Other than these minor details, I believe majority of the steps I made throughout this project where important learning curves that allowed me to develop my knowledge about Instagram and help me further my research, resulting in my ability to inform my followers in the best way. 

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Final Outcome and Reflections

I am extremely happy with the final product of my Instagram account ‘howtohackit_’. I was able to gather the right information in order to inform my followers about the way in which Instagram work to give you your sponsored posts. I tested various methods that gave me all different outcomes, allowing me to judge the best ways to see results. If I had more time, I may have found more ways to explore this and perhaps used more forms of Instagram to spread data - such as using Instagram Reels, IGTV etc. I would have potentially spent more time on each topic, and/or searched other various topics. However, with the time frame I had, I believe I chose a good variety of topics (that still remained interesting to me) throughout the four weeks. The differences about them made it more of a challenge at times to see results, but this helped me expand my mind and think of more ways I could potentially see results. Before this assignment I didn’t often think about the various ways that Instagram gathers our data. I was aware that they did and I often noticed changes to my sponsored posts based on what I was browsing and purchasing at the time, but never thought there would be so many ways to feed Instagram this information. I also never thought of using my sponsored posts as a way to discover more brands and to help me search for the perfect thing I am looking for. This task has opened my eyes to some of the ‘benefits’ of social media and how using your social media not the way it was originally intended can become a positive. 

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The Use of Instagram Live

There are so many different ways to share content on the Instagram app, and I found that when my 4 weeks were up, that I should maybe share my results in a few different ways. So on Thursday after I had posted my three results images with captions, I went live on the howtohackit_ account for around 15 minutes in order to share my findings with my followers. I think this was the perfect time to go live because I had gathered all my data and I was able to explain in more depth to my followers about my research and findings. Throughout the experiment I refrained from putting too much text on my posts as I know many people aren't interested in reading huge chunks of text on Instagram as it is mainly image focussed. Because of this I thought it would be a great opportunity to further explain each post and findings, in order to help followers gain more of an understanding about each tip and what the whole process was like for me. I had around 10 people tune into the live at different times and received a few likes and comments praising my work. 

**unfortunately, my screen recording of my live didn’t work as my storage was full - so stupid of me ! **

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Another DM Question

This question was another good one. I mentioned in one of my posts that data from Facebook can also be used as both social media’s are owned by the same company. I didn’t mention anything about messages seeing as though I didn’t explore and test it very much throughout the assignment, however did in assignment one. From my work in assignment one, I was aware that the data from your messages is also used so I was able to explain this to Abbie. 

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First Direct Message Question!

In one of my ‘results’ posts, I prompted followers to send me a DM if they had any questions about their sponsored posts, or anything related to my work. This question was super interesting, and great to answer as I had a similar problem in my first assignment! Some things you can search just once, and they will appear all throughout your sponsored posts, so the tip I gave was to use an incognito browser when searching for products you don’t want to see in your sponsored posts!

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Final few posts!

I decided to make a big picture that went over 3 posts so there was a clear place on my instagram that was the trialling stage, and the results stage. After these 3 posts, I made 3 summary posts that explain what the best methods of searching and browsing are, in order to see a reaction from sponsored posts, as well as explaining why this research has been helpful, and prompting followers to DM me if they had any further questions!

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WEEK 4 RESULTS

Final week is up! I am very pleased that I decided to explore the use of hashtags as this gave me a new perspective and unlocked a new way to give Instagram helpful data! My next step now is designing my posts to inform my followers of the final results.

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Third Tip!

My third tip is what I have learned from my results and research in Week 4. I think this tip will be very helpful for followers as I believe it will be one they haven’t heard before. Many of my tips I share I already had ideas about before starting this experiment, so I am thinking potentially my followers know the same too. However, it only recently occurred to me to turn to hashtags. Recently, hashtags have not been used very often and I don’t think my followers would have thought to use them to build the data for their sponsored posts. 

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Results !  Particularly Interesting 

The results I have seen this week have been especially interesting. Because the theme of skincare is a relatively broad, I have noticed quite a few different sponsored posts that all somewhat relate to skincare. Whether that be specific brands, or a treatment specialist, or a razor brand as you can see here. 

I quite liked this outcome and it gave me some good ideas and inspiration for my final outcome campaign posts. 

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Hashtag Searching

I decided to search specific brands of skincare on the hashtag search. The results were very interesting and many posts had products tagged that linked me to online stores. I am very confident that from this searching, I will see results. 

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Using ‘Swipe Up’ on various stories that linked to the same topic for this week. In this example, I saw Kylie Jenner talking about her her skincare brand, and I took the opportunity to swipe up and browse through the online store, clicking on various products.

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WEEK 4: SKINCARE

This week my topic is skincare and I will be continuing on similar actions from last week. I have decided not to make any posts about it - sticking to posting just about tips and updates of my findings. I will also interact with the hashtags to see if I will get any results. 

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Exploring Hashtags?

One element of Instagram that I haven’t looked into very much is hashtags. As a frequent user of Instagram, hashtags are something I rarely use as well as rarely see. However today I saw a few brands use them after the description on their post and I wondered if browsing these hashtags would have any effect on my sponsored posts. This week I am exploring the theme of skincare and will incorporate hashtag browsing (and potentially using) into my testing!  

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Second Tip!

My second tip I have known for a while, but properly tested it out last week - I think it is a super helpful tip for those followers who want to see better results out of their sponsored posts but don’t want to post about it on their Instagram. I have decided on sharing these tips as stories - initially I thought this might not be a good idea as they only last for 24 hours, but after I added them to my highlights, it appears to fit very well with the aesthetic of my page and doesn’t require me to clog followers feeds with multiple feed posts each week. 

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Week 3 Findings

It definitely takes more work to get these sponsored posts to appear if I’m not posting about it and tagging brands. However, I think this week has helped me develop more tips for my followers as this week is more like what they would be doing to see results from their sponsored posts. Because I only have a few weeks to go, I will now be collecting information in order to make more tips and posts to help inform my followers. 

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WEEK THREE I’ve decided to change it up a bit, as I have had a realisation! If I was following this account, I would be thinking, yeah these are great tips and all, but are you just getting these results because you keep posting and tagging brands that fit with each theme onto your account? Because many people aren’t going to post images on their own account of what they’re looking for in their sponsored posts. So this week I have decided to stick to only searching online and browsing through different pages that fit my topic. I want this week to be a more realistic week.