OUGD603 - Work Experience - Day Three: Making A Social Media Post

Making A Social Post Task:

In order to further see the running of and production of content for social media channels, I was given the task of helping to create a post informing customers that they only have until Sunday 28th April to get 20% off all Autoglym products at Halfords. When working in partnership with external brands it was said how there are regulations that need to be followed in creating any content for this, since there will be certain guidelines which the external brand would want to be used in conjunction with Autoglym's branding.

For this task we therefore initially explored the use of design on Halfords' website to see if some consistency could be created in brand elements in the design of this content.

Screenshot of logo design on website.

Screenshot of offer design on Halfords website.

Since there are guidelines in the use of the logo, we decided to keep this the same, utilising the logo on a grey background with a slanted line which separates this logo from other information. We also looked at the use of type on the website they used to promote this offer, and attempted to recreate this by finding the closest typographic match and then manipulating the spacing. One alternate idea to this, however, was to use orange for the offer information in order to match the Halfords' logo, however it was eventually decided to change this to white in order to more appropriately differentiate between the two pieces of information and allow both these sections to stand out individually, rather than blend into one as they did when experimenting with this orange.

In terms of imagery, we had a couple of ideas. One of these ideas was to utilise an image of Autoglym's new polar range series in order to further promote these new products. However, it was considered that the use of these products as imagery may 'cheapen' the look of the products, suggesting to the consumers that this new series is not selling very well and so are discounting them already, which is not the case. For this reason, another idea was to use imagery of products with 'fast' names and those which show movement, as a suggestion for call to action (call the consumers to act upon the offer at hand). Products we made a list of for potential use were:

• Rapid Detailer.
• Fast Glass.
• Instant Tyre Dressing.
• Instant Show Shine.
• Instadry.

Eventually, we decided on three which best suggested this call for action in their product in use shots, which were Rapid Detailer, Fast Glass, and Instadry.

Rapid Detailer.

Instadry.

Fast Glass.

We then added the offer line to the bottom of these images, formatting both elements so that the product in the photographs is shown clearly and impactfully, as well as showing clearly what is being communicated in terms of the offer.

Based on these content images I was then given the task of creating written content to go with the social media posts. Since posts on social media gain more of a following from their younger audience demographics then these can be more playful in their tone of voice, communicating with the audience in a friendlier way as if close friends. A lot of my ideas for this written content therefore consisted of attempting to create puns out of the names of the products to continue to communicate a call to action, whilst directly referencing Autoglym's products.

After reviewing all my ideas with Shaun and the marketing manager, we decided to go with "It'll be FAST (Glass) off the shelves, so be RAPID (Detailer), before it's gone in an, erm, Instant (...Instadry!)". As another way to create playfulness and engagement with the younger demographic on social media, the marketing team often use emojis to continue to convey this friendly tone of voice, therefore some of these were added amongst the post also.

Final Posts:

Facebook Post.

Twitter Post.

Instagram Post.

When making these posts, it was also important to consider their format and resolution, which had to be changed depending on the social platform. Furthermore, in posts such as these, the marketing department, where they can, always tag the external brand in their posts so that consumers of both brands can see and potentially attract a new audience demographic.

Post Management:

After the post becoming live, throughout the day we continued to monitor the interaction with this post from consumers. It was interesting to see how the tone of voice used for the post engaged people in different ways, with the playful tone in particular being something which people commented on and allowed them to feel as if they could reply in a similar way.