My final, full, digital artefact in the form of Instagram poetry – 2000slovepoetry has reached the end of it’s DA journey. Now, I am looking back on what it went through to be how it is today.
I was inspired by the 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma. 2000slovepoetry has always been a simple, low-cost digital artifact. It was a fast-creating project where mass content could be turned out quickly. I would edit (and still do) on the free SparkAdobe Designer app. I utilised some boosting engagement ads spending no more than $23 at one stage. instagram.com/2000slovepoetry also started quickly, and churned out beautiful film photos with half-good poetry until I grew better at editing on SparkAdobe, and including better poetry.
Like any honest BCM student will tell you, I followed some of my friends and they followed me back. But it wasn’t just this that saw my first spike in followers, but a combination of poetry hashtags, the 3-4 x $8 ads for the poetry and promotion on my personal Instagram account. I started getting more attention to my DA after some research into the most popular poetry hashtags on Instagram – and there was a wealth of community knowledge there. I combined a list in my notes app on my phone that used the 30 most popular writing community hashtags (the max you can use), and started to copy and paste these hashtags each time I had a new post.
My poetry and my stories have always been meant to serve the audience. I am a spoken word poet of 5 years who has always loved bringing people together. I believe I succeeded in bringing about real connection and providing a space that showed humanity and empathy. I wanted to do this in spite of the evil Internet; that is out to rob us of our serotonin and take us away from the important things while selling us materialism. With my stories, I got to highlight what I believe to be the most important parts of life – friendship, love and compassion. I also held space for dealing with grief, heartbreak, loss and struggles with religion too. The social utility was achieved the second that someone felt something true and real from reading one of my poems. That was my goal! To make people feel all of the things!
My feedback with my audience was a crucial part of the journey. It was essential that it worked in a loop. In establishing content that connects with my audience, the structure of my feedback loop has proved most helpful. Feedback, iterating and producing ensures a cycle that asks questions, gains insight and corrects itself, expanding directly on what the audience wants. I achieved engagement by posting poetry content, using Instagram stories, using direct messages and replying to comments on 2000slovepoetry.
Important learning moments: I have learnt to be active in project repairs when issues arise. I have learned the importance of course concepts like FIST, FEFO, BEBO, making and breaking, as well as iterating and prototyping. Poetry is the still the most exciting communication tool in my life.
In conclusion, I now have a consistent, repetitive performance of a DA that iterates, changes, and learns from itself. It’s fully functioning, pretty, and I look forward to continuing with it into the future!
References
https://www.instagram.com/2000slovepoetry/
https://poetryinthestreets.video.blog/2021/11/16/2000slovepoetry-excels-out-of-lockdown/
https://poetryinthestreets.video.blog/2021/10/14/documenting-2000slovepoetry-to-be-beta/
https://poetryinthestreets.video.blog/2021/08/23/blossoming-2000slovepoetry/
internet kid 