Ticket to the future

In August of 2020, we received an offer to support the “Ticket to the Future” project on social networks. This is a countrywide project for early career guidance for students in grades 6-11 in Russian schools, which at the same time happened to be the first social project in the portfolio of the Relate agency (until this project, we have mainly been promoting commercial brands).

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In August of 2020, we received an offer to support the “Ticket to the Future” project on social networks. This is a countrywide project for early career guidance for students in grades 6-11 in Russian schools, which at the same time happened to be the first social project in the portfolio of the Relate agency (until this project, we have mainly been promoting commercial brands).

Ticket to the future

The main goal was to establish communications with the audience of schoolchildren, parents

and teachers with the help of social networks. It was necessary to create interesting content for the target audience, thus involving it in the project. For our team, it was an opportunity to take part not only in a social project, but in a socially significant nationwide project.

Main goals

Our main goal was to involve the target audience in the project. The global objectives of Relate Agency in cooperation with the “Ticket to the Future” team were:

1

The attraction of 6-11 grades’ students to the website with a further registration and completion of the "Fitting room of professions" questionnaire;

2

Involving teachers to familiarize us
with the best career guidance practices based on the results of teachers-navigators.

3

Involve parents to introduce modern jobs and the completion of “family” tests (for them and their children).

SMM-objectives

Considering the previously-mentioned objectives, we have chosen to set the following goals:

1

To raise the project recognition among schoolchildren, parents and teachers on social media.

2

To increase their social media engagement, by using relevant content and interesting presentation mechanics.

3

To attract potential followers, thus increasing the number of subscribers on accounts of the project up to the following indicators:

3.1. 4,800 Instagram followers;
3.2. 4,800 followers on TikTok;
3.3. 4,800 subscribers on VK.

Project specifics

The specifics of the work were as follows:

The key platforms for us were Instagram and VK, but they needed to be launched on the basis of the already existing communities of the “My History” Foundation. Thus, it was necessary to retain the existing audience of fans of historical posts and at the same time build up a new one (primarily, to attract an audience of schoolchildren in grades 6-11). That meant we had to find a compromise to the design that would satisfy both a conservative audience and a more progressive one in the face of modern schoolchildren.

Among other things, it was necessary to launch a TikTok-channel from scratch and film 10 videos that would be trendy and be interesting for children. For the first time, we worked on the Yandex.Zen platform. In particular, it was necessary to publish 20 articles on the topics related to career guidance for school children.

First ideas

Considering the starting information, we decided to move away from the previous style of the feed and refresh it with:

— modern graphic design;
— collages;
— motion graphics and 3D;
— soft identity integration into the grid of posts with the use of color schemes, fonts and patterns.

(How the feed looked like before
https://www.instagram.com/myhistory_bvb/)

(First attempts of developing a new style)

We added gradients with a focus on the font and minimalism which goes in line with modern trends.

As a result, the feed had become radically different from the design it had before.

The first issue

Due to radical changes in the visuals, we had an outflow of a more conservative audience that is used to historical posts in the format of photos. For this reason, we decided to rethink our own approach and to develop a hybrid design format that was not so radically different from the previously used one.

We reduced the number of bright colors, simplified the graphics and added more historical posts. The audience outflow had slowed down, but wasn’t stopped. At the same time, schoolchildren who actively followed us and became involved in our content reacted positively to the new approach (ER increased by 2 times compared to July).

A news feed before and after

Promotion
complexity

The main issue was the following. On the one hand, the content had to be modern in order to attract schoolchildren. On the other hand, in order to retain an existing audience, so it was necessary to keep the original format of historical posts.
Thirdly, the content had to tell about the concept of “Ticket to the Future” in a simple way.

This was the reason why, during the second month of working on the project, we decided to differentiate the platforms according to the content specifics. Since the majority of the audience on VK consisted of history fans, we increased the number of history posts on this website. In turn, on Instagram we made a focus
on schoolchildren, so the visual strategy was still aimed at a more fashionable and trending content. At the same time, we increased the number of posts covering the project itself, so that the followers could understand the main idea of the project.

VK and Instagram promotion specifics

This approach to creating and publishing content has complicated the process of attracting a new audience. The optimal solution to this problem was an individual approach to each segment of the audience. In other words, we segmented the audience by age and interests, and then with the help of various advertising communications, we established interaction with them.

In particular, we:
— identified key messages for each segment of the audience;
— prepared promotional material.

This approach turned out to be more efficient than the initial content promotion itself, but it was still not close enough to the expected KPI. It allowed us to reach our targets on VK, but not on Instagram. As a result, the approach needed some adjustments.

Due to the fact that at the initial stages of work with the project we managed to attract a part of the required target audience, we decided to strengthen the advertising configurations with solutions that the Facebook algorithm offers us.

The algorithm allowed us to:

1

Analyze all the users interacting with our content and page;

2

Gather a similar audience (lookalike);

3

Determine the most potentially relevant audience for our page.

Instead of advertising content, we used advertising creatives (with the message of the main key messages of the page). Ultimately, this allowed us to reach the KPI.

TikTok promotion specifics

To promote the project on TikTok, we filmed a series of videos called “#showyourskill”. The idea was to launch a challenge among schoolchildren in which everyone could demonstrate their skills. The scenario was as follows: the hero of each video found a certain object and showed his abilities.

In this case, to get followers, we used advertising campaigns optimized for audience attraction.

The scope of work:

Preparation of monthly post plans for the official community of the project on Instagram, VK, Facebook, OK.ru, TikTok, Telegram, Youtube and Yandex.Zen. Transfer format: presentation in PowerPoint or Excel file.
Creating at least 20 unique posts monthly
for the official “Ticket to the Future” communities on Instagram, VK, Facebook and OK.ru. Posts in this case imply copywriting and design, which were sent to the customer for email approval in a PowerPoint presentation format.

Creative development of posts and stories for social networks: contests involving mechanics and polls by customer’s demand.
Video editing and publishing on YouTube (up to 3 per month)
based on the customer's materials (upon request).

Development of the official pages of the project "Ticket to the Future" in the OK.ru, TikTok, Telegram, Youtube and Yandex.Zen communities.
Making 5 unique posts monthly
on the official community page in Yandex.Zen.

Posting at least 8 unique videos monthly for the official TikTok community.
Making 25 stories monthly for official communities on Instagram, VK and Facebook.

Community moderation: monitoring issues and comments on Instagram, VK, Facebook, OK.ru, TikTok, Youtube and "Yandex.Zen" pages, preparation of the Q&As, as well as the removal of disturbing content.