How Is My Digital Artefact Podcast Going?
Update #2: Project iterations & feedback loops
“Iteration forms an extremely essential part of design thinking and is the name given to the process of incorporating continuous improvement in the final design or finished product. The process involves creating a prototype and testing it among a small group of people, only to tweak the design according to the feedback received for the prototype” (Dalal, 2021).
Since the first blog update about two weeks ago, much progress has continued to occur for Curiosity in Rising. The methods I’m undergoing in approaching the digital artefact project are evolving through troubleshooting based off of engagement numbers and feedback. And, surprisingly, I’ve actually found that Instagram reels aren’t as great as I had previously believed!
With there now being five published podcast episodes available to stream (two more since the last blog) for Curiosity in Rising, the numbers have remained pretty stable while declining slightly for streaming. The most recent episode, titled ‘Crystals and Self Direction! With Crystal Expert Talia Omac’ did a little better than the one before that, I think this could be because of the title with the keywords “Crystal Expert” perhaps drawing in more listeners. I marketed the episode as one that would be great for people who were looking at beginning their understanding of crystals.
I’d say my first feedback loop was using reels, I use apps like Canva and Prequel to create visually aesthetic clips which have audio snippets of the podcast episodes. One of the reels had a video element because I’d recorded a bit of my chat with Jack on my phone, this one outperformed the others so when I get back to campus I’ll endeavour to film some more content which will engage viewers more than the simple image ones.
I began to look online at the strategies other content creators in the spiritual community had adopted so that I could be more inspired. Alea Lovely is a spiritual podcaster I look up to who takes advantage of Tiktok in promoting her podcast.
A trend that made a bit of a comeback on Tiktok in recent months was the “Day in the life” mini vlogs, in class a friend of mine suggested I create one of my days at university whilst recording my podcast. I took this suggestion on board and posted a mini vlog on Tiktok and Instagram reels, this did quite well, the first one reached over 200 likes, so I filmed another last week and posted it today, following that same format to see if I can gain traction online and ultimately draw in new listeners for the podcast. I also plan on making much more Tiktok content on a trip to Tasmania I am going on next week! Filming scenery and using trendy sounds.
I’ve also used iteration in my use of hashtags for my DA’s Instagram page. Some of the most successful ones have been posts which include the hashtags 'discover under 1k’ and ‘wollongong business’. Thanks to these hashtags, I’ve received a few likes from strangers and even gained a few random followers. So moving forward I’ll make sure I continue using these stronger hashtags.
Feedback has been provided by listeners via the Instagram page, I posted a ‘questions’ box on my story seeing what topics people would be interested in, one listener expressed a desire to understand spirituality in more simple terms, suggesting I do an episode solely for beginners in spirituality, so I plan on doing an episode on this in Week 10!
I did some research on content placement to better produce upcoming reels and Tiktoks: https://www.modelop.com/blog/the-importance-of-rapid-iteration/#:~:text=Rapid%20iteration%20ensures%20that%20models,use%20time%20of%20the%20model this highlights the importance of knowing your audience and reaching them as soon as you can.
I was pretty excited when I received news that my podcast had entered some charts on Apple Podcasts! Particularly being successful in Portugal!
So this makes me feel that I’m doing something right and that people are enjoying Curiosity in Rising. I just want to work on the quality of audio going forward and promoting it wherever possible. I plan on using a page on reddit: ‘new podcasts’ to draw in some new listeners this week too! I’ve had some pretty rewarding analytics so far, and now thanks to feedback and iteration I can continue to move forward and grow the artefact even more!
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