Category Archives: BCM114

The Finale

Finally, this semester is coming to an end and so is this project

Throughout this project, I have gone through many ups and downs either personal or in uni and its crazy to think that this is the second semester of doing this project and I have enjoyed it so much.

Mia’s Life is my TikTok page that is all things about mental health, I decided to make this page last semester as my first my project in this degree and I decided to continue this project this semester as I saw heaps of room of improvement and i wanted to focus more on a lockdown series this semester.

When deciding whether or not to continue this project I decided to do a bit of research to see if there is a problem and there was. I saw a lack of content produced about mental health and just souly that, I wanted to create a space for people specifically women in Sydney that is in lockdown and between the ages of 13-25. When I started creating videos, sooner rather than later I started receiving followers, also sneakily stalking my followers I saw that about 95% are female and also in my target audience as well.

With Identifying such a big problem that’s when the ideas factory started running. Looking back at my ideas from the start of this project they are completely different from my current new ideas, obviously, with being out of lockdown my ideas and videos were not good content to produce now as the lockdown was the main primary umbrella idea at the start of the semester. Now I am trying to focus on mental health and coming out of lockdown effectively.

Another factor that contributed my to my ideas is implementing the FIST principle (fast, inexpensive, simple and tiny) this project was just something I could easily be able to do whilst in lockdown and it was perfect. I didn’t have to purchase any materials; it was very fast and simple as most of the videos was just about me and my life coping in lockdown. This was something that was very important to me as I wanted a project where I could produce loads of content for basically no cost and no effort at all.

Ultimately this account was created to help people and I wanted to make relatable content as a uni student with mental health illnesses, I just wanted to document my life and what I like to do or what I do in day-to-day life to make me feel the best I can. Especially being in lockdown mental health illness was and still is rising, I just wanted to be an open voice and to show people that they aren’t alone with what they were feeling.

once I established some ideas in what I wanted to do, I did some making and prototyping. The first 2 videos I posted was a complete flop, they were 2 videos using the 3-minute feature and yeah it didn’t really work but I was fine with it because of FEFO (Fail Early Fail Often) . It was a learning curve.

The third video I uploaded was very successful with nearly 2000 views and roughly 150 likes. This gave me an indication of what were successful videos at the time, I also did some research on how to grow your tiktoks. This helped me learned what times are the best for posting, what hashtags to use and what sounds to use as well. Every video I upload I am very appreciative of the feedback I receive whether or not that is from gaining more followers, likes and or comments on my posts as well.

I kept up with posting for a while then it got to the stage in the semester where we had to redesign and break our DAs which came at a perfect time as my views were slowly declining and my ideas were slowly running out as well. The Remaking part of my DA was the easiest and the hardest part if that makes any sense. It was hard to try to remake my idea into something new and to make it different and fresh, but it was easy because it gave me the ability to start fresh and potentially do a 360. Right now, I still am in the breaking and remaking stages as I am trying to solidify my ideas, I still would love to continue this project after the semester is finished but as of now, I’m still trying come up with something different and stuff that I haven’t done before.

As outlined in my beta I got some feedback and ideas from my followers on Instagram of what they like and that gives me more of an indication of what I should be thinking about also in the breaking and remaking stage of this project.

I am excited to see where this project will take me after the semester is over !

Mia x

BCM114 DA PROGRESS 2

My DA has gone through a lot of stages with learning new things from lectures, tutorials and the given material each week. These materials helped me a lot to understand how to utilise them to prototype and to understand what I need to do to help with my growth on my account. this blog post will be discussing more of the prototyping stage, the breaking and remaking stage.

PROTOTYPING

I started to prototype as soon as possible, which was great of me as it gave me the opportunity to establish my followers and the content that I wanted to make. Prototyping helped to see wat my viewers want from me and what they like to see on TikTok.

The thing with TikTok is that trends come and go very very fast. You have to be on top of the content and trends. With that being said its quite hard to go viral or get heaps of likes and followers from TikTok. So, after establishing my content and seeing the feedback that I have received I kept making the videos that were getting the most likes, views and interactions on my page which were days in my life and funny trend videos that are using trending sounds.

And my videos went really well for a minute and I started to gain traction with followers and more feedback from users of the app, until it stopped. The videos I was posting were barely getting 200 views and my last video got 13 likes !.

Conveniently that’s when the new module started ‘breaking and remaking’

BREAKING AND REMAKING

Breaking and remaking my DA was quite a hard thing for me to grasp as to be honest I didn’t want to; I was quite happy to keep it the way it was until my last couple of videos completely flopped on TikTok.

This made me realise that this was needed. So, I went to the drawing board to figure out what I needed to do to make my page grow even more. It’s basically starting all over again and forgetting everything we learnt. As said in the lecture you need to pull things apart (analysis) is only half the movement, you have to put them back together (synthesis) in a new way. Also stated in the lecture is the point of breaking as a mindset, you have to ‘presume your assumptions about how things are, and should be, are wrong’.

That made me realise I need to just start fresh and with new eyes and new ideas.

As outlined in my beta I went on my personal Instagram and decided to do a few polls to ask my followers on how they interact with mental health accounts and what they prefer. This helped me with coming up with new ideas and even consider adding on an Instagram page in conjunction with my TikTok as more of my insta followers explained that they follow more mental health accounts on Instagram instead of TikTok. But I went on twitter to ask my BCM followers what they think, and the poll answered and said no.

I’m still thinking about making one as this would be an opportunity to rebrand and remake something to be fresher and newer.

As you can see my new ideas are similar but as not focusing on being in lockdown but now, I’m trying to focus on how to help people come out of lockdown efficiently and effectively. I want to do new gym vlogs and also to talk about the anxieties of leaving lockdown and your comfort zone, I don’t know about you but leaving lockdown and going back to work and everyday life is very stressful, overwhelming and my anxiety is through the roof.

So i’m still trying to solidify my ideas and what I want to create. I haven’t started any videos as of yet because of course life has to throw you many curve balls all at once. But I am very much enjoying my project and very excited to get back into making videos for people to enjoy and ultimately help them.

So until next time, See you later.

BCM114 DA Beta

Since my last blog post, a lot has changed.

If you could remember my DA is using the social media platform TikTok to show my own mental health recovery and how I have dealt with my mental health.

Below you can see my YouTube video for my Beta.

A somewhat goal of mine was that I wanted to hit 100 followers, when I started this page up again from last semester I had roughly around 40 followers, now that has increased by 37 which is great growth. Especially as it is quite hard to naturally progress on TikTok as a platform.

I began my project with prototyping using the new 3-minute function on TikTok and I posted 2 videos using that feature and I left it up on my page for roughly a day and the results and engagement were not that great. Using that information, I decided to delete those videos and start fresh (FEFO), so I filmed a 15-second video with a trending sound and hashtags and the results of that video were great with nearly 2000 views on the video and over 100 likes.

Again, using that user feedback I started saving some sounds that I could use for the topic of mental health as I decided that these types of videos were the best for growth. I also utilised having the BCM gang on Twitter and see what they prefer, by doing this has made me realise that Twitter is not the best app for receiving feedback as my Twitter polls don’t line up with the feedback and the response, I received from TikTok as it was completely different. So, from that, I told myself that actions speak louder than words and focused more on the likes and comments I received on my TikTok.

So, as you can see the majority of my videos posted on TikTok are 15 – 20 second trend videos and I have a few days in the life videos as they are the ones that are proven to gain more traction and that gives my page more followers, likes and comments through the use of testing and prototyping my videos. I have also posted at different times using different hashtags to see when the best possible time is for receiving a high number of views, likes and comments. But there is a risk with the trend videos that I wanted to produce as some people can take offence with people making a joke or a funny spin with their own mental health but with receiving some statistical feedback majorities of people do not take offence to a joke.

I haven’t received any specific feedback or comments on TikTok, so I decided to make some polls on my personal Instagram to see what people actually think about mental health. I received some statistical feedback on some topics and questions that will help me in the future on what to focus on in this project whether that would be on the type of content I will produce or on what platform I will use.

My plan for my DA has changed from what I first originally thought it would be, but with an app like TikTok, you need to learn to adapt and quickly. That is probably one of the biggest things I have learnt with working on the app is how quickly it changes. That doesn’t mean that my initial idea of helping people with mental health has changed, my content is growing and changing with me. So, with continuing this project I am wanting to keep testing my videos to specifically find my niche with my specific audience and to see what they like, as Ted said we need to be breaking as a mindset, breaking it down into parts, putting the project back together in a new way to continuously adapt and become a better project as a whole.

I am excited about the content and ideas that I will be producing for this project, so until then see you later.

My DA Progress

So, what is happening with my DA? , well I’m here to tell you exactly that.

So just to recap my project for this semester is on TikTok and me discussing and showing what I do to help with my mental health struggles. Here is a link to my Pitch Blog and Youtube video if you want to look more into it: https://miawatton.wordpress.com/2021/08/18/bcm114-pitch/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Zftr0zf0w.

So, let’s start from the beginning, I needed to decide whether or not I wanted to do a completely new DA or continue my DA from last semester. I obviously decided to continue my DA from last semester as I saw heaps of room for improvement, and I did really enjoy doing making TikTok videos on mental health. Last semester I based my content on going to the gym, losing weight and what that does for my mental health, now being in lockdown I have had to improvise. So, this semester I have decided to do a Lockdown edition.

So, I started to write down some ideas of what would make my videos different and more elevated compared to last semester. I was looking at the different editing options and what type of videos were particularly popular and most likely to pop up on my FYP. I saw a lot of vlogs type videos or day in the life videos which had a lot of good feedback, some creators including @anna..paull and @okcallie on TikTok that focus on Day in the Life videos. @okcallie focusing more on living with anxiety which is why she is a big inspiration for this project.

After researching a little bit, I wanted to test out the new 3-minute option on TikTok, which failed miserably (#FEFO). I made 2 videos discussing what helps with my mental health and left them up on my page for 24 hours and it barely got 20 views and 5 likes. I decided that 3-minute videos will not hit my target audience.

I did some prototyping and made some trend videos and sort of funny videos after the failure of my first 2 videos, but I just wanted to see how my audience would respond and one of them did amazingly with, to date 1.8k views, 148 likes and 5 comments with my audience interacting with the video immensely.

Looking at that video and doing some additional research (Look at: https://www.bustle.com/life/tiktok-for-you-page-trending-sounds, https://www.edigitalagency.com.au/tiktok/the-most-popular-tiktok-hashtags/, https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/best-time-to-post-on-tiktok-for-more-views-and-likes-1509972/) I found the importance of using trending sounds, hashtags and posting at specific times as these tools will be reaching an extensive larger audience. By reaching a larger audience it gives me more of insight by receiving feedback from my analytics showing followers, likes and comments. This has made me understand what my viewers want from me.

After some prototyping with different types of videos, I put it to the BCM gang on Twitter asking them what they prefer on TikTok and the people spoke: 63% of people prefer Day in the Life type of videos, 24% prefer tips and tricks on dealing with mental health, 13% prefer sit down videos and finally 0% of people prefer trend videos, which somewhat contradicts the feedback I got on my TikTok videos. But after seeing that I made my first day in the Life video which did very well.

Once again, I went to Twitter and asked BCM students what they think regarding content and how much is too much or too little.

After seeing the answers, the majority thought 3-4 posts were ideal, even though I haven’t really kept up with posting 3-4 posts a week, I am trying to focus on building my drafts up which does make it easier to post 3-4 times a week.

 I also wanted to create a little miniseries on my TikTok based on lockdown which my followers do seem to like, and I am reaching and connecting to my target audience, which is amazing to see.

So, keep following along to see my progress and follow my DA for more content @mia.watton.

BCM114 PITCH

My DA is a Tik Tok page focusing on mental health, specifically in lockdown.

I started this project in BCM112 and I wanted to continue this project as I saw heaps of room for improvement since last semester and also I wanted it to be a sort of lockdown series as most of Australia is in lockdown.

I am still trying to work out the best times, sounds and hashtags to use on videos for them to be more popular than some of my previous videos. Explained in my pitch video I created two 3 minute videos which failed miserably, so moving forward most of my videos will be a minute or less.

Also explained in my video I will be using the FIST principle, as a broke uni student this is the best thing!

It’s FAST – really quick to make videos

INEXPENSIVE- it’s a free platform and free to make videos

SIMPLE- it’s a simple and effective. A project-based on my life

TINY- small videos that can be iterated and start a series

This project is really fun and helps me focus on my potential future career in social media as I am able to fail and learn from my mistakes.

Pitch video below :

BCM114 DA POST

I have decided to continue on my previous DA, which if you have been following me since the start of the year, in BCM112 I created a DA on TikTok that was about mental health and my own personal mental health struggles.

I am wanting to expand on that as last semester I really didn’t post as much as I wanted and also I didn’t talk about a lot of the topics that I wanted to, but that is ok because there is room for improvement.

So, this semester in BCM114 I still will be focusing on mental health but more of a lockdown edition. I will be incorporating lockdown into my DA as a majority of people are experiencing it right now and will continue the lockdown edition until we are out of lockdown. I am taking advantage of lockdown and focusing on a lot more topics surrounding mental health than just the gym, which was the majority of my videos last semester and with Tik Tok now having the option of 3-minute videos it will better for more of my sit down Tik Tok video ideas.

A few of my ideas are:

1) Day’s in the life – lockdown edition

2) What lockdown can do to a person

3) What I do to help with my mental health

4) Real and raw videos

5) My experience with therapy

  • DISCLAIMER- All of my videos will have trigger warnings as some people will find some of my videos triggering, especially talking about lockdown as well. My DA topic is something that I am passionate about and I will be happy if my videos help at least one person and at the end of the day this is about my life so somethings that work for me my not work for other people.