Social Media
The client presented for the social media advertisements was Valley Pike Farm Market. The Makers were tasked with creating two advertisements each for four different social media platforms. The goal is to advertise holiday items.
Creative Brief
Story Post
Carousel
Rationale
One post and one story was created for the Instagram platform. The approach used for this advertisement is product as the star as it focuses on the items and products that can be included in a gift basket. The carousel post consists of a gift guide for certain personality traits that people could have. This is a fun way to showcase the items that Valley Pike Farm Market has to offer to their customers. The Valley Pike Farm Market logo is included on every slide of the post to keep consistent branding throughout the entire post. The last slide provides a call to action with all mandatories needed for the customer to be able to purchase the products. The caption for this post is simple and will closely mirror the call to action on the last slide. The Instagram story consists of a series of slides that the viewers are able to interact with. The first slide introduces the point of the following slides to “create your own holiday gift basket”. The following slides have a “this or that” concept where the viewer decides which item they would prefer to have in their basket. Once the viewer gets to the last slide there is a call to action which states that all of the items can be purchased at Valley Pike Farm Market. All mandatories are included with the last slide as well. Both advertisements use a product as the star approach with each different slide highlighting a product. This is a clear and concise approach that shows the viewer exactly what they should buy.
TikTok
Video 1
Video 2
Rationale
The TikTok platform was used for two of the social media posts to advertise for Valley Pike Farm Market. Since there are a few college campuses surrounding the farm market, TikTok was chosen to be used as college students and the Generation Z population are heavily influenced by the short videos. The video created uses a graphic and text-heavy approach along with a personalized gift guide and products that are sold at the store to create variety and personality. The first TikTok provides visuals of 3 types of people the audience may be buying a gift for. The graphics and visuals use reds, greens, and yellows to match the holiday theme and incorporate elements such as stars and Santa to make sure the audience knows what the message is. The sounds of reindeer, Santa, and bells in the back also tie into the idea of the holidays and help to get the theme and main idea across clearly. The second Tiktok uses a lighter color scheme with a collage approach, which is often seen on Tiktok from influencers showing their favorite gifts to give or products to use. This content will be seen as “relatable” to others and may help visually show individual gifts rather than the already put together basket in the first Tiktok.
Rationale
Facebook was selected as an advertising medium because while, yes, there is a large population of college students in the area, there is also a large population of older individuals with families in the Shenandoah Valley. It was chosen to reach an older audience who will not only be scrolling through Facebook, but also purchasing the items. This is also why it was decided to not only utilize a post by Valley Pike Farm Market, but also a sponsored ad to be placed into users’ feeds. Within the posts, there is a strong emphasis on photos as the audience responds well to large fonts and pictures. This pulls in the attention of the viewers to read the captions, which features a call to action to either visit the website or the actual brick and mortar location. Both of the posts feature a product as the star approach, with the business as the featured product. With Facebook being the medium, users will also have the ability to share both posts with friends on the platform. As for the theme, a very classic Christmas look was applied to both, with a continuing color scheme of red, coming from the ribbon, and green from the garland to create the right feel of a classic Christmas gift that the viewers adore.
X
Rationale
X was selected because, while it is not that popular when it comes to the other platforms, many people still use it for news and ideas. Hence why the platform was used, especially for its hashtags and easy searchable material. Using the search bar, users can type in any phrase, word or hashtag, then the search bar is able to display any tweet or post made using that word, phrase, or hashtag in any capacity. This gives any business the opportunity to create custom hashtags that pertain to itself, making it easy to find and reuse by users. X also has recommended posts that show up on user’s feeds; meaning the algorithm is able to best match similar posts, accounts or hashtags, to best match the user. This can further help any business reach different audiences even if those users are not following that business’ specific account. Emojis are also prevalent to the platform, many users use it when posting or replying.
For the first post, the handshaking emoji was used to connect “Valley Pike Farm Market” and “The Holidays” in a similar fashion that is popular on X. Many users follow this format when trying to show connection between two things. Then it is followed up by a small copy, as X has a 280 character limit, a link to the website as a quick call to action, then hashtags, emojis and a custom hashtag pertaining to the business. This post uses more of a straightforward approach to entice the audience to shop at Valley Pike Farm Market. For the second post, a question was used as a hook with a thinking emoji. Then it is again followed up by a small copy, a link to the website as a quick call to action, then hashtags, emojis and a custom hashtag pertaining to the business. While the two share the same business hashtag and link as a call to action, the formatting, emojis, copy and accompanying hashtags are slightly different, making it so the posts can be found using different keywords and phrases. This question and announcement style approach gets the audience excited for the holiday season at Valley Pike Farm Market.
References
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