Hi there!
This is an update on the progress of my Digital Artefact: Inspired Denim!
Which consists of both an Instagram and TikTok account where I share my own attempts at painting on denim jeans and jackets.
MY FIRST PROTOTYPE:
Below you can see what my project looked like when it first started (which let’s be honest, isn’t very appealing).
By observing my audience and engagement I realised that my audience didn’t want to see inspiration/ ideas about what you could paint, they mainly wanted to see my actual attempts. As such, I have stopped putting effort into creating ‘inspiration’ videos and have focused on creating my own, original content (which is more fun anyway).
I also found that when I put more effort into making the photos I shared look more aesthetically pleasing, I achieved greater engagement.
As such each time I share a photo, I keep a close eye on how my audience engages with it so I can learn what to do and what not to do for my next post. I find the more I am sharing the more I am learning about who my audience is, and what they want to see.
As Mel Wicks explains in her blog post about content curation, it’s important to understand your audience the best you can!
MY LATEST PROTOTYPE:
So far, my Instagram account has had a (very) slow but steady increase in followers, I have been experimenting with hashtags and spending time creating conversations with similar accounts and finding people interested in my type of content.
As such, it seems Instagram is the optimal platform for my Digital Artefact and I will continue to focus most of my energy on maintaining and improving my account.
Whereas my TikTok account on the other hand, is currently failing… hard. (Fail early, fail often… right?)
For now, I’m going to continue posting videos on TikTok as I know that there is definitely an audience for the content I want to share.
However, I’m also going to start exploring other social media platforms such as YouTube to see if there are other avenues I can take to boost my user engagement.
I am not super confident in my video making/editing skills (which is probably a key reason behind the failing TikToks), and composing my photos and videos to look they best they can, is definitely something I have struggling with, especially as I have a lot of problems finding good lighting and working with my camera’s limited photo quality.
However, Ross Hudgens, in this article, talks about the importance of framing your content specifically for your target audience, which means I need to step up my game when it comes to my Digital artefact’s presentation.
This project is something I’m really passionate about and enjoy doing in my free time, so hopefully I can improve my skills by continuing to create and edit images and videos.
So far, I think the biggest setback I’ve faced while trying to grow my account has been not posting content regularly enough. It takes a long time to find, paint and finish the denim pieces and then photograph and edit the photos/videos, which I think is impacting my audience engagement.
As such, I’m going to post behind the scene photos on my IG story and space them out in between my actual posts to increase my content output, hopefully this helps me increase my followers and keep my own audience engaged.
THE END GOAL:
Whilst I’m currently still practicing and working on improving my artistic skills, my goal for this project is to monetize in the future as such I’ve recently made an Etsy online store account, which I will use to (hopefully) sell the denim pieces I make in the future.
I’m aware that this project has a lot of flaws, however I really enjoy it and it’s something I am passionate about, so I’m going to keep on making stuff (in real life and online), sharing it, observing my audience’s reaction and trying again!
MOVING FORWARD…
I plan to dedicate more time to finding and painting denim clothing.
Focus more time and energy on taking aesthetic photos of the pieces, and improve my content’s quality.
Post as frequently as I can (at more optimal times).
Explore other social media platforms.
But, most importantly, have fun with my passion!
FOLLOW ME!
FOLLOW INSPIRED DENIM ON INSTAGRAM- https://www.instagram.com/inspireddenim/
FOLLOW INSPIRED DENIM ON TIKTOK- http://vm.tiktok.com/ytBhmW/
CHECK OUT MY ETSY STORE- https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/Inspireddenimdesigns?
FOLLOW MY TWITTER- https://twitter.com/alinahager
ALINA HAGER 
Hey, great read! I liked how you are expanding your feedback loop over multiple social media platforms. Even though it is slow right now keep persisting and allow yourself you define your failures and move on! On my DA I have been trying to spread my project through members of my family and friends social media platforms in order to appeal for a bigger demographic, I reckon you should ask your friends to shout you out etc. Hope to hear more from you soon!
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Hey Alina, your DA is definetely underrated, the results are amazing! I think you should keep on posting these making of videos, as they show how much effort you put into your work. I’m not familiar with other denim hand-painted accounts, but maybe you should not only see them as a future goal for your own account, but also as an inspiration. What do these accounts *not* have or show, that you could incorporate into your posts to attract an audience? I’ve changed my DA as I realised that there are no YouTube videos for the type of ASMR that I’m now producing, so that I can offer my audience new content. I know it is hard to find a niche but maybe you have an idea to stick out with your denim! 🙂
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Hey, this was a really good read! I enjoy how you went into detail about how your audience was responding and how you made a change to create more original content, and how it turned out to be more enjoyable anyway! I think it was great to see you are making the positive changes for your DA and how you were going along with the prototyping stages so that it could help your page be more accommodating for your audience. One suggestion I have which could help speed the pace of your DA could be to possibly change your account to a business profile, Instagrams settings when you are under a business profile provide further resources which could help the developmental stages of your page. I look forward to seeing how you end up going!
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Hey! Your DA looks really interesting. Im personally such a huge fan of the painting on denim trend, and i do see a lot of it on tiktok, so its super cool that your doing for your DA. I can definitely relate when it comes to instagram being the most popular social media account for your DA, as the same thing goes for my group’s DA. I can also relate on how lighting and video quality being a big influencer on well your content does, as that is important to my group’s DA as well. As for improvements, I think you lined out what you need to do in your blog post perfectly. As you said, focusing more time and energy on your DA is super important, and posting as frequently as possible is a good point too. It sucks to see that you don’t have that many many follows on tiktok compared to your instagram, so ill be sure to follow you on there 🙂 keep up the good work!!
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Hi there!!! Firstly before I begin I really love your DA!!! This is such an amazing idea and I’ve seen this on instagram you should check her out her instagram is @xenjiacurly she does designs on denim jackets! I have been following your instagram as well and I do believe you are doing amazing! A suggestion for you is to maybe put your account to a business or a creator account just so it can give you more insights into how your account is going. Another recommendation is to set up shopping on your account so people can click on your denim pants or denim jackets and buy it, reason is because you have a lot of interaction on your instagram and it would be really helpful for you to do!!! If you have an questions on setting it up let me know and I’ll be happy to help you. Overall I absolutely love the designs, everything you have been doing wishing you all the best 🙂
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A super interesting update! The difference between the reception on your early posts and your later posts have really inspired me to keep an eye out on the stats and likes for indicators on what to do vs what to do less. I found this article by Buffer Marketing Library which says something along the same lines: https://buffer.com/library/social-media-engagement so it was fascinating to see it in action. I’m not sure if you have a tripod for your filming device, but I find them very handy when doing projects by hand. Other than that, big fan of your work!
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