Hey guys, welcome back to Capture By Kayla.
A lot has grown from when I first ideated my DA idea of creating social media accounts and a blog on the platforms of Instagram, YouTube, and WordPress. However, the DA’s aim of providing audiences insight into the creative process behind content creation, focusing on digitally visual productions, has stayed the same. Needless to say, what this entailed developed and altered along the way as I began growing an audience and experimenting and learning what that audience is and wants.
Audience engagement really transforms an account into something of worth as it becomes valued and actively followed. Knowing this, I aimed to publish and promote content across my platforms, sharing links within bios, blogs, posts, videos, and stories. This allowed my audience to expand and follow the content in which they liked best.
I have only received good comments on my content and even some users have shown curiosity about how I edit my photos. From this, I led audiences to tutorial videos on my YouTube. The purpose of my DA is seeming to be appreciated and useful in this way.
I set up my Instagram account as a business account so I could gather information about my audience. So far, my following on Instagram is 92% made up of users within the age range of 18-24 apart from a few outliers. It is not surprising that my DA has attracted those of the same/similar age range as me, as we tend to have similar interests and that’s where my contacts lie also. Regarding geographic data, 53% live in my hometown of Sydney, 35% in Wollongong and another 1% in Orange and Brisbane. For the countries, 96% live in Australia, 3% in India and surprisingly 1% in Mexico. I would assume my YouTube and blog audience demo/geographic is very similar.
Starting from nothing, I am quite pleased with the growth my account has experienced and also that I have reached my target market. I hope to continue growing.
I made some iterations based on the feedback loop, however, this feedback mostly being verbal and from twitter poll results.
- Uni friends said to post more regularly
- So I posted more regularly
- Pre-planned Instagram profile layout (ordered photos) to improve aesthetic
- Posted up-dates on my work across platforms on my stories to generate constant content
- Friends said Illuminate series photos were too similar and getting boring
- Mixing up next series (diverse photos – Scandinavia)
YouTube
- Started a poll to find audience preference on tutorial editing styles
- Preferred – voice-over throughout & fast/quick timing
- This will be my editing style going forward
- Short films are more watched then tutorials (75 views)
- Posted short film to kick off next series (Finland/Estonia/Norway)
- Boring channel art banner
- Made a new one with social media icons and my face for identity and character
Blog
- Lack of interaction
- Needs more attention, however, I am in the process of deciding whether I should instead focus on using my Twitter account as a sort of mini-blog to better appeal to my fast-paced and social media orientated audience.
Going into my next series should be interesting as I have only posted night photography and videos so far. The next series will include photos and a film from my trip to Scandinavia, so there will be a lot of ‘winter wonderland’ style photography and film. Hopefully my audience will react positively, however, we shall see. I’ve also wanted to diversify so here we go, I was just waiting to gain an audience first. Wish me luck!
By Kayla Mathew
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DA Instagram: @capturebykayla DA YouTube: CaptureByKayla
Capture By Kayla 
I love your DA. These photos are super cool and you’re so talented! I like the fact that you’re using multiple platforms as I am doing the same (not as many as you though!). I agree with the feedback you seem to have already gotten – blogs are hard to get interaction with nowadays. People prefer the mainstream easy stuff like Instagram and Twitter. I definitely recommend trying the brief “blog-like” posts on the Twitter. I think that would get more interaction. I follow bloggers who also do things like that on their Instagram as well since it’s so widely used. You could maybe try that if the Twitter doesn’t work out.
In terms of your content, I love the night theme you’ve done so far, I’m interested to see how the next Scandinavia bit will go. Maybe instead of doing one theme at a time you could incorporate them. So like one day do night then the next, the snow in the day. Not sure how that would look in terms of page aesthetic but it could be cool if people are saying that they think some of the content is repetitive.
Looking forward to checking out your next bit of photos!
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This DA idea is so cool!! All of your photos are amazing and the Instagram feed is so aesthetically pleasing. Blog interactions are becoming harder in a sense because people do want quick and easy interaction with someones to work, so keeping up to date with Instagram and twitter will help grow your audience a lot. Instagram will be helpful with longer updates and posts on what you are doing along with your blogs too.
With the content you are uploading is showing that your audience is loving it so far and I can see why all of your photos are so good, I love all of the dark theme and bright lights they look great. I can’t wait to see where this takes you! Also incredibly excited to see the winter-wonderland photos omg!
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