Overview
In GRC 372, three other GRC students and I served as marketing interns for Cal Poly's University Graphic Systems (UGS). We reported directly to Kayla Yim, who served as one of UGS' Marketing Directors at the time. One of our main tasks this quarter was to redesign UGS' social media platforms, primarily the UGS Instagram account.
End-of-Quarter Goals
Together, we came up with four goals we wanted to accomplish by the end of the quarter:
• Increase engagement on the UGS Instagram
• Increase awareness of UGS to Cal Poly students
• Improve the overall aesthetic of the UGS Instagram feed
• Capture all of the services that UGS has to offer, digital and print
Project Details
Timeframe: 10 weeks | Fall 2021
Team: Izzy Pascua, Cindy Nguyen, Erika Deanda
Course: GRC 372 Applied Graphic Communication Practices @ Cal Poly SLO
Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro
Implementation
The three main deliverables we wanted to implement were:
• Instagram Post and Story templates
• Instagram Highlight Covers
• A short video introducing UGS and the 2021-2022 UGS managers
I was in charge of creating the Instagram Story templates and the Instagram Posts highlighting how to use the Blend tool and Pathfinder tool in Adobe Illustrator
Instagram Templates
Instagram Before...
As you can see, the previous Instagram theme did not accurately reflect the new UGS logo or the new branding identity that was implemented. We also found that it lacked pictures of people which made it feel less personable.
Instagram After...
Analytics
Overall, our engagement has gone up by 12.8% since we updated the Instagram:
• We reached 12.8% more accounts
• We boosted engagement by 15.3%
• We gained 1.1% of followers
Introduction Video
In the Introduction video, we wanted to highlight the UGS managers for the school year, feature the machines used, the products and services offered, where to find UGS, and how to contact them.
My main task for the video was to create the pain splatters and animated effects. I created the effects in Adobe Illustrator and sent them to Izzy to be edited with Adobe Premiere Pro.
Challenges & Lessons Learned
This was my first time in a marketing role and my first time managing any form of social media. It definitely took some time to get used to the strict deadlines and limited meeting times. The most difficult part was making last-minute changes to posts while making sure deadlines were still met. Despite the challenges, I learned valuable lessons from this quarter:
Plan Ahead!
Our team used Trello to keep track of Instagram posts and see who was in charge of creating which post for the week. This made it easy to schedule our posts and ensure that the template was being properly followed.
Communication is key.
Sometimes changes needed to be made last minute or someone might have used the wrong template for their post. Communicating these things with each other was extremely important. Luckily, we had a fantastic team who always communicated with one another.
Play to each other's strengths
I think our team worked really well together because we played to each other's strengths. We only assigned tasks to individuals who were most confident in their ability to execute them and this ensured that posts were being made effectively and accurately.
