Digital Artefact: Prototyping

This second module of BCM114 is all about prototyping, making, breaking, and remaking our DA’s. It has been a process of further development that has created a much greater understanding of how to run our page, and curate and create content.

One of the main iterations on the original idea has been the reformatting of videos. In week six, we talked about the reducing the video length of our clips down from 2ish to 1ish minutes. This was because we looked at our first videos analytics and discovered retention was not as long as we would have hoped – dropping down to 50% of viewers within the first 10-15 seconds. After discovering the benefits of using Facebook analytics, we have used it as a primary tool in our feedback loops – and best of all, it’s FREE. The information below was used to tell us that we needed to be more to the point, people are impatient and want their laughs earlier on. If they don’t have something catch their attention in that first 10 seconds, chances are we’ve lost them.

It was around this time I read an article on content curation by Todd Clarke, and took away a couple of pointers that would hopefully improve the way our content is seen, as well as our online personas – ‘Know your Audience,’ and ‘Mix it up.’ Using our favourite tool, Facebook Analytics, we could determine our audience – young, Illawarra-based males, to try and figure out who we should be tailoring our material for.

So after our first shorter video, we seemed to be doing a bit better. The shorter format also helped us in that it made the production side of things fairly easy. We developed a method that basically enabled us to spend an afternoon filming, writing, and editing – and end up with two polished video’s ready for posting. The intro on our latest video was a little different and less bland – so we will soon see how that goes at holding audience retention.

In week 8 we looked at how our prototype isn’t proving to be great at getting feedback and support, and decided we need to investigate ways in which we can increase interaction. Lecture material showed us there is much more to making than just producing – it is about iterating, and using information that has been provided in order to establish better content, and then better connections with the audience.

“One of the best ways to grow your audience is to share your process”

InHyuk Lee.

This quote led me to try and create a little more authentic feel for our audience – so I did a little behind the scenes twitter post about our filming efforts. This, paired with questioning my twitter followers on where we should explore next hopefully can create more of a platform for discussion about our DA. We are also thinking that it would be helpful to invest in helping other DA’s materialise in order to expand our own. Our problem is not many real similar DA’s are being created – I want to message the guys at Devouring Wollongong, a food review DA, and see if we can form some sort of collaboration to increase both of our audiences.

An idea we had earlier on was put to test recently, the introduction of occasional memes on our Facebook page. We wanted to ‘Mix it up,’ creating a little more variety on our page from just the occasional video.

It did create a little more engagement, but not heaps. We know that we need to be churning out a few more before we can see how the memes actually are resonating for viewers. An important realisation I had this week is that I’m going to need to be much more present on twitter if we want to expand. This is a flaw of mine – I often forget to check my feed and reply to tweets when I’m not in class. A failure defined though is barely a failure, this is just a skill that needs more work.

Aesthetically, ‘Crap Shacks of the Gong’ is definitely starting to come into it’s own. The videos low-production value and focus on humour is becoming something that our viewers expect and enjoy. I wish there was physical evidence of this, but as stated in our project Beta, most of our page feedback is in the form of conversations with friends at the pub.

Although this has been a very wordy post, I want to end with a few more. The more we look back on our analytics, past blogs, blogs of others, and our twitter feeds, the more we learn about our DA. I have enjoyed writing this blog as it has been a good reflection of work so far, and work that is yet to be done. Hopefully we will have continued learning more by my next blog, and will have another more improved iteration of ‘Crap Shacks of the Gong’ to present to you.

Cheers,