A major part of gaining momentum for the Inter.work campaign is to spread the word through social media. I’ve been making infographics that communicate data regarding international students and the creative industries in an engaging way. At the same time, I’ve been sharing updates and resources that are relevant to the campaign. These range from immigration news updates to grant opportunities for students.
Here are a couple of posts examples:
After starting the @Inter.work.creative account on Instagram, as part of the steps mentioned in my previous blog post I’ve also opened a Twitter account for Inter.work, @Inter_Work_. Twitter makes it easier to semi-directly reach out to experts and find people who have a relationship with my subject. This while also making sharing important updates easy with a simple retweet from people in the field.
For both Instagram and Twitter, I’ve established two unique hashtags for people to find and relate to my work. The first hashtag is #IfICouldFreelance, which is for international students to let their experience with limited freelancing be known. The second hashtag is #InterWorkWork, and this one is for international students to share their creative work with Inter.work.
In terms of changes to my social media strategy, for the time being, I’ve decided to pause the dynamic of reposting international students’ creative work in exchange for donations to a nonprofit of their choice. The reason is that I believe the audience is too small yet to gain the momentum needed for that exchange system to work. If the audience grows, I may bring the system back as I do believe in it but the size of the audience is not there yet in order for it to fully work and be worth the invested time.