Social Media Crisis Prevention

| Ashley Porter
Image licensed through Adobe Photo Stock 2023

What Not to Do

Since the beginning of social media and the viral spread of knowledge that comes with it, we have seen some unfortunate examples of what not to do when it comes to crisis management. First of all, what constitutes a social media crisis to begin with? Simply put, a social media crisis is anything that could negatively impact your business’s reputation and reception through social media. Imagine one day waking up to a slew of notifications that your brand has received numerous negative responses to a post you or someone on your team created. In 2018, surely the CEO of Meta (then Facebook) Mark Zuckerberg woke up to panic when it was discovered that Facebook had a major data breach in relation to Cambridge Analytica. You would not know it, however, not by the way he handled the situation.

Typically, in a crisis situation, even 15 minutes is too long to wait to respond in order to get ahead of the crisis. Zuckerberg took four days to respond, and even when he did, there was little to no apology in sight. Four days of headlines asking where he was and Facebook users jumping off the platform and demanding action from Zuckerberg all led to a very chaotic and more advanced crisis situation than was necessary. Not only that but the Facebook brand was permanently damaged due to a lack of trust in the company. What we learned from this poor example of crisis management is that marketers and PR teams need to have a plan for how to manage these types of situations and that plan most certainly needs to include rapid response. Proactively, especially when it comes to user data, transparency with users and taking advanced steps towards protecting their data should be common practices to prevent data hacks and cultivate trust with users and stakeholders.

What You Should Do

While there are plenty of examples of poor responses to social media crisis management, there are even more examples of success. Do you remember when KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) ran out of chicken? Talk about a crisis! They took immediate action to let the public know why there was a chicken shortage, what they were doing to fix the situation and they did an excellent job of keeping their customers up to date over social media. That said, what I appreciate most about their strategy was that they had a strong understanding of who their customer base is and were able to formulate an appropriate response, with a touch of humor.

In addition to an apology, they knew that the British public had a sense of humor and appreciate a joke. The advertisement above went out and the response was positive. If they didn’t know their audience well enough, they may have been less likely to take such a risk, so it’s important that in order to mitigate crises, brands engage with their audience and gather feedback from the employees at their company who know their audience best.

In February of 2022, I working from home and our company’s main tool for staying connected while working remotely was Slack. Slack is an online messaging application and that month, for whatever reason, the app went down. I remember being confused, management and higher-ups were monitoring the situation and sharing Slack company updates. Temporarily, we switched to Google Chat and enjoyed the transparent, timely updates from Slack as to when they would be available for use again. After the issue was identified, Slack provided regular updates to users via their status page approximately every half hour. 

Once again, we see a company that knows its audience and introduces some humor in order to create a light-hearted but considerate update. By being down to earth in their updates, they reminded their users that they too are human and not free from error. I remember when our CEO shared this Tweet and how we all laughed about it later and talked about how we appreciated the clever post. Other people Tweeted similar responses:

So now that you understand some do’s and don’ts when it comes to social media crisis management, what steps have you taken to ensure you’re in good standing when a crisis hits? Need more information? Check out my links below for crisis management resources and guides:

Hootsuite – Tips on social media crisis management

HubSpot – Free Template

Bandwatch – A paid tool that helps you keep track of what people are saying about your brand over 100 sources, and more.

Mention – Enables brands and agencies to monitor the web, listen to their audience, and manage social media.

My Experience with The Digital Divide

| Ashley Porter
Imaged licensed through Adobe PhotoStock 2023

2023 and yes, it still exists.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term “Digital Divide” what I’m referring to is the basic fact that while some have access to quality, high-speed, affordable internet -others do not. Globally, the United States is doing pretty well with internet access compared to other countries, however, we have a ways to go before everyone has the same opportunity as everyone else where internet access, infrastructure, and costs are equal. You may experience some of the effects of the digital divide yourself, or know someone who does. Today, I’m going to bring the conversation close to home and discuss my own experience with the digital divide.

To start, I’ve lived in the same town for most of my life with short 1 to 2-year stints living in other areas within an hour or two of my hometown. My hometown of Redding, CA is urban and considered a small city with a population size of about 93,000 people. There are a few ways in which someone might feel the negative effects of the divide and those could be either monetary-based and/or based on location and infrastructure access. Since getting with my now husband in 2016, we have moved a lot and we have mostly experienced the location and infrastructure side of the problem as being our greatest issue. I remember nights when my husband would be gaming with his friends and I would need to upload an assignment for work and I would have to wait until he was out of a match -or something to that effect, before I could upload it so that he would not “lag” or get booted from his game. This was not a problem at all where he was concerned, he worked hard all day and I wanted him to be happy. The problem came from the lack of quality internet and we were paying at least $80/month for this poor-quality internet however, it was the best we could find in the area at the time. This would play out as a similar struggle in the following couple of places we would live.

Fast forward to 2020, I’m still in school, it’s Covid mania and we were sent with all of our office supplies to work from home until further notice in Chico, CA. Both of our jobs would state that basically, they found remote work to be doable if not beneficial to our companies and we could stay working remotely forever if we wanted. Um, yes -thank you. So, in the summer of 2020, we decided to start looking to purchase a home, and since we could live anywhere now that we could permanently work from home, my husband and I purchased our house in our hometown to be closer to family. Our new home is pretty centrally located in the city, so we didn’t think internet access would be a problem. When we toured what would become our first 30-year loan, we noticed that everyone around us had Charter/Spectrum high-speed internet and we were thrilled. This home was amazing and the idea of having that access was enough to put us over the moon.

Before we put an offer in on our home, we checked with Charter to make doubly certain that we would be able to get the hook-up after we moved in. Amazingly enough, they said they could have a technician come out before our move-in date and so we set it up. Excited, we meet the guy at the house and he walks around for a few minutes and then comes over to tell us that he cannot connect us and that whoever we spoke to on the phone misinformed us. Baffled, we stated that literally all of our neighbors around us have their internet, so why not us? Being the bearer of bad news, he told us that our home had been constructed after the main line had been put in, and if we wanted to connect to that line, we would need to pay $14,000.00 for the cost of construction that it would take to add us to the line and then connect it to our home. You read that right, a multi-billion dollar company wanted us to pay thousands in order to be added to their infrastructure. According to Macrotrends, Charter Communications’ net worth as of May 04, 2023, is $54.48B. Yet they wanted us to pay.

After some discussion and negotiation from my husband, they said they’d be willing to cover around $4k, leaving us to foot a bill of $10k with no option to do payments and they would not begin until we had paid in full. So, to recap, we just bought a house. We did not plan for this extra drain on our savings and we could not do it. We spent the next month away from our new home, working remotely from my in-law’s spare room, all the while checking locally to find some solution that would work for us. Or needs were not small, we both worked from home, I was also taking online classes and we also had smart systems in our home which used the internet from our gaming devices to our Alexa and security devices. We had to find the best quality of high-speed internet we could and we tested at least three out until we caught a lucky break.

Fortunately, due to my husband’s diligence and resourcefulness to find another solution, we came across Elon Musk’s new satellite internet solution called StarLink. At the time, it was in Beta testing still, however, all of the reviews that were coming in were very positive from other early testers and Elon’s plan was to continue to put more satellites into inter-orbit as time went on, which would mean that the quality of internet would only get better. The upload and download speeds that we were seeing from other users had us sold and we got on the waiting list for our area. As soon as our location became available for StarLink, my husband snatched up a satellite and we began our $100/month payment plan. Easily enough, we installed the satellite and rarely and more rarely ran into any issues or lags. It was better and cheaper than any other service we had tried and best of all, we no longer needed to keep the dreaded idea of paying Charter on the table.

Fast forward to today, May 5 of 2023 and we are still using StarLink. The quality of the internet has improved, there are no data caps, and all is well. About once every 6-7 months, a different salesman with Charter will come out and knock on our door to see if we are interested in connecting. Each time we have told them of our plight (because they fail apparently to take any notes), we still feel fiber internet would be preferable to satellite internet and StarLink mentioned they might start imposing data caps. Each time we open our door to discussion once again in hopes of some change of heart from their end, but to no avail. Most recently we were told that Charter was given a substantial amount of grant money in our area in order to connect local households to their fiber internet and once again our hopes were ignited. Yet, when it came down to it, they still wanted us to pay and they still didn’t offer a payment plan – despite what the salesman said. Lots of promises of inquiries, making it happen for us, phone calls, and nothing to show for it. So sick of Charter, last week when yet another salesman came up to me while I was doing work out in the yard, I could not help but pour some salt and immediately turned him away. Now, get this, the next day, my husband got an email stating that StarLink will not be imposing data caps! So, here we go onward with StarLink until further notice.

The frustration has been real and quite frankly, I know we don’t have it nearly as bad as so many others. What’s your internet divide story?

If you’ve been through it, we definitely recommend StarLink to anyone who is looking for a better alternative. Check out this link to see if they service your area and get on the waitlist to be notified when it comes to your location if not.

Good luck!

Social Media and Education

| Ashley Porter

Learning Through Social Media

As good designers, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our skills, enhance our knowledge base, and learn about something new. Today, more than ever before, social media has become a conduit for learning and teaching online. The benefits of teaching through social media platforms like LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram are many and include the ability to review and make edits of recorded lessons, reach a wider audience than you would in a traditional setting, and obtain reviews that could potentially help your business gain more customers. As a learner, you are able to become more aware of educational content that may be useful to you, view reviews and ratings for the content to help you make the best decision when it comes to choosing who you will learn from, and benefit from flexible learning due to the 24/7 availability of accessing the content. Not to mention, a lot of educational content is free to the user like a lot of what you might find on Youtube due to the payment methods and policies they have in place with the person who posts the content.

When you attend an accredited university, you know as a student that you can trust that the information you are receiving in class from your instructors is correct and current, but how do we as social media consumers know if the information shared on social media is accurate? What if it’s a scam? As we all probably should know, just because there is a post that claims something or shares a lovely quote by someone, we can’t always be certain that what we are seeing is valid. On the same note, it has become more and more of a taboo to share or like posts that include misinformation, so before we share – we check. The same thing goes for educational material on social media; we must check out the source and if possible check reviews from other users to see if we can validate the content and the individual teaching it. If you don’t do your due diligence this way, you may fall victim to a scam resulting in your personal data being hacked, money fraud, and many other unfortunate consequences.

There is no doubt that in the 21st century, social media is a prevalent force enabling users to express their thoughts, voice their opinions, and connect to each other anytime and from anywhere. The appeal of social media as a learning platform is in large part due to the ability to participate by viewing, creating, and sharing content and the knowledge it offers. Learners are also able to share their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions, and cultivates a user-centered environment that is social, personalized, and interactive. As an educator, and yes if you’re teaching how to do something online then you to are an educator, it’s important to recognize that successful learning outcomes depend on the goals and objectives that drive the design of instructional strategies and the selection of social media platforms. Not every platform may be best suited to learn from just the same as not every platform may be the best choice to share particular educational content. I have linked some of the best tools for sharing content and what type of content is below. This list will help you whether you are seeking something new to learn or a way to share your knowledge and skills.

Social Platforms and Learning Content List

Facebook Page: use for broadcasting updates and alerts. Familiar alternative to having users download and learn how to use another messaging platform like Slack. Instructors can use it to post class updates, share assignments and encourage discussion.

Facebook Group: use to stream live lectures and host discussions. Instructors can also post discussions, assign homework and make class announcements here.

Twitter: use as a message board or discussion board. The 280-character limit makes students/users think critically about communicating concisely and effectively which is another beneficial skill. Teachers can also create discussions and Twitter chats surrounding a specific hashtag that they create.

Instagram: use to present a series of photos or graphics in a visually appealing way. Instagram allows students to practice digital storytelling in ways that other social media platforms do not. As a learner, you can create a class-specific account and then delete them after the course has been completed if you choose.

Blogs: create a class blog for discussions. There are many different platforms available such as WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Blogger, and more. Learners can create their own user accounts to make discussion posts or add comments on class prompts. Blog posts as essays or short-form writing is another strategy for combining social media and learning. Learners can respond to weekly prompts making it as informal and loosely structured as possible as well as this method can be transferred across all subjects.

Pinterest: create a class-specific Pinterest board where you as the instructor can save pins that are relevant to the lessons you are teaching. It’s a great platform to help instructors prepare and organize resources, lesson plans, and worksheets in one place. For learners, it’s useful to curate a digital bibliography for research projects, papers, or group assignments. Learners can pin websites, books, or videos to a board on a single topic and refer back to it when it’s time to write.

Youtube: used to teach and to learn by sharing content and viewing that content. Instructors can share their structured videos of their content, gain followers and ratings as well as answer questions or give feedback to viewers. Learners can access the content by searching for a specific topic, viewing the top content creators for that subject, interacting with other learners and the teacher, subscribe to the instructor to stay up-to-date on their latest content uploads, as well as access it at any time from anywhere.

LinkedIn: similar to YouTube, LinkedIn allows for the ability for professionals to share their wealth of knowledge for free or at a price. Learners can again have unlimited access to the content and know that it comes from a reputable source. Learners can follow the instructor, message them directly, and even connect with other learners.

Final Thoughts

Social media for learning allows learners to gain a sense of community and belongingness. It also is the fastest way to contact people or share crucial information. As an instructor, it can help you make your approach more student-centered. Social media is easily accessible and most modern-day learners have a digital presence already making them highly familiar with the ins and outs of social media platforms.

So, embracing social media and incorporating its features into the teaching and learning processes can have a positive impact on learners. Instructors can provide video lectures, and quizzes, tag learners, and have them participate in group discussions. In this way, learners will not only gain knowledge in an interesting and engaging way but will also get the flexibility to learn from wherever they want and whenever they want.

Social Media Engagement Dos and Don’ts.

| Ashley Porter
Image licensed through Adobe Photostock 2023.

We’ve all heard them, maybe even cringed a little when we read about them. What are they? Company apologies and painstakingly pleading to the public for a failure to connect appropriately to their audience. This could mean you didn’t respond to a complaint or questions online or you misunderstood a social trend and it backfired. For example, on popular frozen pizza company, DiGiorno, found themselves on the wrong side of the social media movement #WhyIStayed when they Tweeted their reason for staying was because “You had pizza”, making light of a serious domestic violence issue. Later, they put out a public apology and tried their best to save face. They neither showed empathy towards the victims nor did they contribute in any meaningful way to support the movement. Their mistake? They claimed they did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.

So, what can we take away from this? Definitely do your research, and secondly, do not try to capitalize on trending rights-related topics. Unless your business donates to a charity concerning what is trending, it’s probably even best to steer clear of trending topics unrelated to your business altogether. Their apology did help to account for their actions, however – so keep that in mind if you ever find yourself in an instance similar to DiGiorno like so many others before and after them. Taking accountability and showing remorse is important, not just for the sake of business but because we are all humans at the end of the day who are capable of mistakes as much as we are capable of forgiveness.

Engaging customers appropriately over social media has shown to be very advantageous and even creates a sense of community around brand loyalty. According to Xperiencify, there are 15 valuable strategies they suggest in order to increase customer engagement on social media. Consider your brand voice, and what personality you want to be associated with it. Your tone should be relevant to your target audience and you can enhance this by considering what characteristics your audience values most. From there, in order to create brand loyalty, you can find ways to share massaging about your company values and culture as well as your story. When you do this, your company or business will stand out from the crowd and you will have the voice that identifies you.

As someone who recently took a course on digital marketing, I can say there are a lot of helpful tools out there to help you improve your social media marketing. From utilizing search engine optimization techniques and services such as that which Google offers, to increasing your email engagement through software like Hubspot and MailChimp, you can certainly experience an increase in customer throughput throughout their journey. Be sure to post to your social media channels regularly to create more opportunities to engage with your audience. Also, use interactive content like quizzes, polls, and live videos in order to keep the two-way conversation going. And of course, respond quickly to your customers, thanking them for positive feedback, answering questions, and recognizing complaints. Businesses that are not responsive on social media lose business. Customers need to feel heard, it’s as simple as that.

By showing empathy and actively listening to your customers’ wants and needs, you can make their experience with you personal. When customers feel a personal connection with your brand, they are more likely to be loyal to your brand moving forward. This can lead to future sales with them as well as potential referrals, so it’s not only good to care about your customers for the sake of humanity, but also for the good of the business. Now that you know your customer more personally, you can tailor the content you provide to them by creating relevant content for your audience. You might be asking, is there a way you can lose a customer after you’ve engaged with them, built a personal relationship with them, and provided excellent feedback and social media output? The short answer is yes.

What we have discussed so far are just pieces of the customer journey, but the trip is not over yet and your customers still have a way to go if they’re to be completely sold. Have you ever clicked a link from a great ad just to find that the link was broken? What about if the link worked but the website it took you to was slow to load, not mobile-friendly, or confusing to navigate? Even an outdated web style can be unattractive to customers and they may be concerned that if your website is out-of-date, then perhaps your purchasing and shipping methods are as well. This can all lead to increased bounce rates (potential customers leaving your site prematurely) and loss of email subscriptions. To help you learn more about ways to increase your website loading time, improve search engine optimization, and ensure your site is also mobile and tablet friendly, check out my links for helpful resources below.

Resources:

Search Engine Optimization guide from SEMRUSH

Ways to Help Improve Loading Speed from Hubspot

How to Make Your Site Mobile Friendly with FirstSiteGuide

Great Businesses Use Effective Graphic Design On Social

| Ashley Porter
Image licensed through Adobe Photostock 2023.

Business was forever changed with the introduction of social media. Companies can now use several innovative methods to connect with their audience all around the globe, and graphic design plays a major role in making that happen. Popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more allow businesses a platform to help them stand out from the crowd and grow relationships with new and existing customers. Imagery is a huge factor in that success and according to Hubspot, a top source for digital marketing strategy, people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than those following without graphics or pictures. If you’re struggling to engage your audience, ask yourself if your marketing includes graphics, and then take a look at some of the best brands that excel at incorporating graphics in their marketing strategy.

Six of the best brands that I can think of that really nail graphic design for social media are Spotify, Starbucks, Oreo, Mailchimp, Netflix, and Shopify. In 2020, Spotify came out with their #2020wrapped campaign as a way to grab their audience’s attention. More than just a social media hashtag, it showcased Spotify users’ most-played songs, favorite bands, and podcasts in an easily sharable, clean, and simple-looking infographic. Starbucks, while they lack fair wages and treatment of partners, does not lack in graphic design material. In the image below from their 2020 fall campaign, by adding the phone, you as an audience member are now not just looking at another coffee and Fall aesthetic photo, but something interesting that you want to learn more about. It’s unusual and so now you simply must read the subject matter and find out that there is an 800 number to call to order your Pumpkin Spice Late for delivery.

The article 5 Ways To Engage Consumers On Social Media in this week’s reading list claims that by using humor on social media, you can increase engagement with current customers and grow your follower count when people share your post with their friends. Oreo does an excellent job of cleverly using images of their product in different funny scenarios that match a current trend or message. In this image Oreo designers showcase their Graduation Oreos during the Spring of 2022.

Just a few more graphics that sparked some humor or showed a great design for interest:

It’s pretty clear that graphic designers are integral to excellent marketing strategy. We must be clear that while there are tools for non-designer marketers to use to help them incorporate graphics in their social media strategy, marketers are not versed in design concepts or the principles of design. If you’re looking for a way to incorporate more graphic design in your social media outreach, consider adding a graphic designer or two to your marketing team – you can thank me later!

Political Design On Social Media

| Ashley Porter
Photo licensed through Adobe Photostock 2023.

Have you become more engaged in politics due to exposure to social media? When you think about how social media has been impacted by politics, it’s pretty easy to imagine that what first drew your attention was an image whether that image was taken with a camera or digitally designed. Effective communication begins with the visual and is enforced by what is written or talked about regarding that image. Effective imagery encompasses colors that depict the mood of the topic, icons that are universal, and sometimes even phrases or slogans that simply and clearly explain the topic. Today I want to discuss what makes an effective social media campaign and how designers play a pivotal role in helping campaigns succeed, as well as our responsibility as designers to design with integrity and truth.

As we all know at this point, people in politics lie. They blatantly lie or omit truths so that their arguments prevail over facts and reason. So what about political campaign ads? Can they lie in those also? The short, unfortunate answer is yes. The Honest Ads Act was a bill in the United States Senate intended to regulate online campaign advertisements by companies. The bill was proposed on October 19, 2017, as a response to Facebook’s disclosure of Russia purchasing political ads during the 2016 United States presidential election. The Honest Ads Act was eventually incorporated into the For the People Act, which passed the House but stalled in the Senate during the 116th and 117th Congress. As designers, we have a responsibility to turn away a paycheck when it comes to false or misleading information being presented to the public as truth. Any designer who is willing to subscribe to shady practices should be held accountable and while the United States has attempted to wrangle this problem, we have sorely fallen short.

Now that we are designing campaign ads responsibly, let’s talk more about what makes for great social media design for political campaigns. Similar to the thought process behind creating excellent marketing campaigns for social, designers can also consider five main things when planning a political social media campaign: if this is not your first time, audit your previous social media performance, define your campaign goals, create audience personas, identify distribution channels and key times to post and last, check out your competitors.

Audit your previous social media performance:

Carefully review the metrics from each social channel you used so that you can see where and how you have generated leads, driven traffic to your website, gained social follows, and increased conversions – in this case a conversion could be considered as signing up to vote, signing a petition or subscribing to an email list or newsletter. Tracking these metrics helps you and your team understand whether or not you have been successfully meeting your goals.

Define your goals for the year:

Think about the goals you have and try to break them down into categories that align with your wider goals. If you want people to sign a petition, donate to the campaign, and engage on social media, you might categorize your goals in two ways: branding goals and revenue-linked goals. For branding goals, you might include how many people you want to reach within a time frame, how many relationships you create, post engagement for the month, how many shares you acquire, etc. Revenue-linked goals might look something like how many sign-ups you received in a month or how much money you raised in a certain amount of time. Remember to always keep your goals SMART too. That is, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, so that you can gauge your performance.

Create audience personas:

Sure, why not? If you are trying to raise funding and awareness for your campaign, as a designer you know how to create user personas and they can be very helpful when trying to reach certain demographics at certain times. Do you need millennial buy-in? Well, take a look at when they’re on social, what the typical millennial is up to during a routine day, and when you will most likely be able to reach them. Know your audience through personas by identifying their struggles and pain points. Are they worried about fires? Polluted water? The ads designed with those concerns in mind will help you target those groups. Many millennials are parents now, so maybe they’re worried about their child’s education and gun regulation. Your candidate is pro-gun reform and education funding so now go design the eye-popping ad that will create awareness and hopefully lead to donations for your campaign.

Identify distribution channels and key times to post:

When trying to reach your audience, knowing what social media platforms they use and what times they use them can increase the likelihood that your campaign ads will be seen. According to Statista, in 2020, 59% of marketers said that Facebook was their most effective social channel, with Instagram at 17%, LinkedIn at 14%, Twitter at 3%, and Pinterest at 1%. That gives a good big-picture view, but knowledge of how your own brand and audience interact on social is even more powerful. Know where your audience goes and when they’re most likely to see your ad.

Check out your competitors:

Who are your closest competitors? Which social media channels are they using? How are they successful? How are they missing the mark? What type of content are they producing and how effective is it? Where do they need to improve? A type of “social media listening”, reviewing your competition is an effective way to monitor the sentiment around your competitors’ campaigns. Then take these gained insights and implement better ways to inform your social media campaign design strategy.

Resources:

Statista

HubSpot and Semrush have additional resources and articles related to marketing strategy that can be useful for campaign design strategy as well.

Designing For Social Activism

| Ashley Porter
Photo Licensed through Adobe Images. 2023

How do we recognize a social movement and differentiate it from others? What is the best way to share that information and grab the attention of other perspective activists? With every social movement, I can pretty well guarantee that an image comes to mind which can be tied into the heart of the movement. It makes sense because in order to create awareness, you need people to recognize in an instant what the message is you’re trying to get across. Many, if not all, social movements have utilized the methods of branding to help create a consistent layout of colors, type, and imagery to do just that.

Think of the Me Too movement, Black Lives Matter, and the Pride Movement. What images come to mind? While the Me Too movement is composed of several different artistic perspectives and portrayals of the struggles of women in a patriarchal society, other movements focused on one particular design or image to help spread awareness. The Black Lives Matter symbol is artwork depicting a raised fist, a universal symbol of solidarity. Its connections with the movement stem from The Black Panther Party and has become embedded with anti-racist protests. The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag or simply the pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) pride and LGBTQ+ social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender.

In other cases, you might see an artist or a team of artists and designers who have their own unique style which they apply to all of the social movements they support. I follow a few different social activists’ accounts on social media and I first discovered Sarah Epperson on Instagram. Sarah designs for posts and reels on Instagram, where I follow her, and often speaks to equality whether that’s for women, LGBTQ+, people of color, or taxing the rich. Sarah has a clear, vibrant, and iconic approach to her designs which helps to bring her audience in to learn more about the cause and how to support activist efforts.

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She doesn’t seem to have much of an agenda per se – at least not in a monetary way. She has a link to her LinkTree account where she does have a shop where you can purchase her designs in various formats, but it’s clear she’s not looking to make a profit. On her LinkTree and her website, she has links to help you register to vote, look at bills for hot issues, and even a donations list of people and organizations she donates to in support of their cause. 

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I can tell she reaches a lot of people because she has over 150 thousand followers and always hundreds of likes on her posts as well as frequent, typically supportive comments. I started following Sarah because I am not only aligned with her values but also I am a huge fan of her artistic style which uses iconic characters and bold themes and creative phrases. In her post, pictured below, you can see how she weaves in statistical information with hashtags and ‘@’ mentions. She does an excellent job of bringing the viewer/audience in with an engaging, bold, and well-balanced visual and then dives deeper into the meaning with her post descriptions. It’s clear that concise messaging in a relatable composition helps to successfully spread a message. By designing online and for social, designers can help spread the word faster than ever before.

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Sources and Credits:

JamesTee – http://www.redbubble.com/people/jameste (Artist who designed the Pride Hand image “Stop Homophobia”)

Rayneese Primrose – https://www.artsy.net/artwork/rayneese-primrose-fists-and-flowers-black-lives-matter

Lauren Mitchell – https://www.behance.net/gallery/57855095/MeToo

Sarah Epperson – https://www.sarahepperson.com/

Creative Crowdsourcing

| Ashley Porter
Image licensed through Adobe Photostock 2023

Maybe you’re just starting out as a designer or maybe you have some extra time on your hands. Getting in on crowdsourcing could not only put some extra cash in the bank, but it could also help you diversify your portfolio, challenge you to try new things, and even wind up getting you the job you’ve been searching for. What is creative crowdsourcing, you might be asking. Well, basically it’s when an individual or company outsources a task to a large group of people in an open call for contributions. It’s a unique ideation approach where designers compete by contributing their design based on a given brief, and if their design is chosen, receive compensation and recognition. The crowdsourcer gains great design from a professional community, in a timely manner – it’s a win-win.

According to Skillshare, there are at least 6 different crowd design platforms that you will want to be aware of:

While all of these are viable ways to start your creative crowdsourcing contribution, not all options are always going to be accepting new designers. I recommend looking into at least a few of these to sign up and get started, not to mention the more you’re involved with, the more opportunities to be selected for your design. What should happen if you put in the time and effort to create an awesome design, but yours isn’t selected? Guess what, you have an awesome new piece to showcase in your portfolio and even create a case study for using the brief you were given and showing your process. Remember when I said you might get that job you’ve been searching for? Maybe it’s because when you applied, the interviewer with the company went to your website and saw this amazing work you did and was thoroughly impressed. Either way, creative crowdsourcing is a great avenue, especially for new, professional designers.

Additionally, each brief you choose to accept will present you with a chance to hone in on those problem-solving skills, refine your software knowledge and even help you learn something new. Companies love to crowd-source creative problems because they are able to diversify their creativity, save money, realize an opportunity for genuine innovation, meet demands for video content, and build their brand affinity. I think we can expect this free-lance option for designers to work to be around for a very long time, so take advantage and sign up for some today!

Resources:

Creativepool: https://creativepool.com/magazine/inspiration/creative-crowdsourcing-from-creative-communities.18415

Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/en/blog/the-7-best-crowdsourcing-design-platforms/

Social Captial in Design

| Ashley Porter

Social Captial is a relatively new term, but a pretty old concept. According to Sadhana Pasricha, the Founder, and President of Social Capital Consultants LLC, social capital is “a sociological concept that refers to the intangible, invisible resources and assets that emerge from our social interactions and  relationships.” Simply put, it’s what you gain by connecting with others. Social capital is a beautiful thing because it can only ever increase based on those connections and when you’re working in design, or any career really, the resources that become available to you by connecting with others in your field are invaluable. (2)

As a designer, consider what you might gain from your social media accounts if you followed a group like AIGA or your local artist coalition. You could gain intel on upcoming software, design trends, art shows and so much more. If you’re a freelancer, then maybe because you linked up with some local artists, they’re able to refer some work your way because either they don’t have the capacity to take on the task, or the work is more in your ballpark. Social capital grows because the individuals in a network are all interconnected and while Dave is great at web designer, he doesn’t feel as confident with motion design and so he outsources that aspect to Sierra who is an expert. Due to this social connection, two people within a network made money and the client was impressed because all of their goals were met with excellence.

Before Dave referred Sierra, however, they had to meet somehow and that is where social networking came into play. By following other designers of similar and different backgrounds on social networking sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, and more, you not only can learn more about your industry but can also gain valuable insight and professional relationships which can help you further down the road. By posting regularly, and sharing your own insights and skills, you showcase yourself and attract an audience of followers who engage with your posts. This following and engagement help to build trust about who you are and what you offer.

Social capital improves reputation by expanding the range of people who are aware of you and what you do. By word of mouth and by visible comments and likes on your work, more people will come to know you as reliable and trustworthy. There are many ways to build social capital including linking your social networks to your portfolio, website, resume, and other social networks. If you have a blog, you can connect it to your website and other forms of communication tools that you use. Expanding the number of social tools you use, the further reach you will have to a wider audience as well. The more people you know, the more likely you will increase your access to the potential ability to obtain resources, favors, or information from one’s personal connections. (3)

Researchers have identified three different types of social capital, bonding, bridging, and linking. Bonding refers to social capital created within a group with shared interests and goals. A neighborhood association is a good example of how bonding works. Bridging, on the other hand, is the creation of social capital across groups. When bridging is successful, individuals in the two groups discover shared interests and goals and work together to achieve them. A neighborhood association that links up with a local police department is an example of how bridging works. Similar to bridging, linking creates ties across groups, but those that span different socioeconomic groups. Linking has been associated with increasing one’s chances of upward social mobility. (1)

  1. Chetty, Raj, et al. “Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility.” Nature, vol. 608, no. 7921, 2022, pp. 108-121.
  2. Pasricha, Sadhana. “Social Capital — the critical assets for success.” TEDxWilmington. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqwTRl9cdn4.
  3. University of North Carolina. “Social Capital – Health & Economic Benefits of Connecting While Distancing.” https://ncimpact.sog.unc.edu/2020/11/social-capital-staying-connected-during-distancing/#:~:text=Research%20consistently%20shows%20important%20benefits,result%20of%20their%20positive%20relationships.