For Black History Month, I completed two social media campaigns! One was done for my role as Ad 2 DC’s Diversity and Inclusion Chair. Info about that campaign can be found here.

The other campaign was for a Studio client, a private Christian school, Kingdom Christian Academy. This campaign, A Student’s Journey, was inspired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture campaign: A People’s Journey.

For the school, I used the month of February to provide information on a Black student’s journey through education. From the creation of HBCU’s, to desegregation onto Black educators using new and inspiring ways of teaching.

The campaign was created with the Instagram platform in mind but still needed to be useful on Facebook. The great thing about Instagram and Facebook (I know peeps like to hate on Facebook, saying it’s for more uh…seasoned social media users but haters gon’ hate!) is that there’s no character limit. For Ad 2 DC, that campaign was made specifically for Twitter and while telling a story in 280 characters or less is rewarding, it’s also daunting.

So, with Instagram in mind, I designed the graphics using a puzzle layout. The puzzle layout is one of the hardest Instagram strategies to execute. Basically, it features a single image that’s split into multiple ones. After they’re split, each individual part is posted on Instagram to recreate its larger version. The downside to this layout is that ideally, each single image should be able to stand out on its own, after you split it. Otherwise, people who see the single post on their news feed won’t notice or pay attention to the image. Each image standing on its own merit was especially necessary for this campaign as Facebook’s timelines and profiles are not in a grid like Instagram.

I used Photoshop to setup the space that would eventually become the overall image on Instagram. Tip: Don’t make individual images and then try to puzzle them together. The secret is one cohesive image and then SLICE.

Here is the image as a whole puzzle:

This image was eventually broken down into 12 individual images to be posted throughout the month of February. Each image can stand alone:

The copy for each image also adds to the fluid feeling of the overall puzzle, as you can see the social media calendar document I used to schedule the posts on Hootsuite.

Analytically, the campaign increased the discovery of the school’s Instagram profile. Impressions increased to over 1,000 and reach close to 600. The individual images received more likes and views than any of the previous posts on the account, with some being reposted and liked by major accounts.