A Reflection Update on L.W.S-the sustainable

After being tasked with a DA first week of semester 2 I was lost. Unsure of what a digital artifact was, and what the limits/boundaries for the idea were. The brain storming process was one of little ideas, trying to combine my skill set with my interests reminded me of when I was asked about what hobbies I have in a job interview. What’s the correct answer? I decided to take the back seat and watch other people come up with ideas seeing where exactly everyone was going with it. To say I struggled in that first bit was an understatement, I had absolutely no idea what to do. But it struck like lightning on a clouded night, I was going to write a magazine.

The idea flourished from there, it didn’t take much as I am a passionate writer for things that I’m interested in. I went through a few of my draft posts on my blog and realised a common theme was appearing. I never really shut up about the environment, sustainability and making a better future. So L.W.S-the sustainable was born. This gave me a reason to explore something I already did on the side.

Turning the Drafts into Final

My first step was to create an instagram platform. Originally I planned just to promote it on my own personal IG account, but after watching the lecture and tutorials I decided creating L.W.S-the sustainable its own account would promote more of a niche market.

If I was to do this again I would have definitely had an introductory post about who I was, what the magazine is about and what my main goal is to achieve. But instead my first post was a meme. The following hasn’t grown to much, I would like to have a few more followers to gain more of a reach, but in saying this I haven’t promoted my page too much.

I set the account up as a professional blogging site so I could access my insights. This has allowed me to see what posts have been more popular, at what times etc. The overall performance isn’t something to be unimpressed with, but its hard to see this played out in likes and comments. I don’t get many comments, and my likes are limited to under 10.

The blog site itself is growing in numbers, my latest post “Cheap clothing, but what’s the real cost?” was posted on the 3rd of September and in the first four hours had 13 views. It is as small incline, but I am hoping for more as I continue to post.

What I have learnt is that a spike in views and visits to my site come from posting, and posting regularly. So I shall start to post more stories that I have written. I have big plans for the magazine, but now I need to create a realistic timeline in which I can complete each blog post. I have begun to email smaller brands that are eco-friendly regarding interviews, that way I will be able to release more intriguing content.

I have realised that even small posts create enough traffic to build the site and its views up. Going off of the ideas surrounding FIST, I want to create more small and fast posts can build quickly. Investing more time into creating memes will be something I am interested in, as I am finding that more and more people relate to content that is funny and easy to digest.

Overall I am happy with this halfway point because now I understand where I need to go from here. I’m excited to start posting some of my bigger stories!!