Content Plan
To move onto discussing the content plan and the actions which were taken throughout the campaign, it must first be reviewed how the content plan was set up and outlined from the beginning. The graphic designed below is a visual representation of how content was going to be produced and then released, including the different periods in which social media techniques will be used to promote the content posted on the Talking Bull blog.
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The content plan shown above was designed with the aim of being able to manage my time and resources during this project effectively. The graphic is colour coded and uses different shapes for different tasks relating to the project. Beginning chronologically, the first item on the content plan is the red oval which is Draft Blog Content. The Draft Blog Content stage was designed to allow me to complete background research of previous matches between the players competing this week which enabled me to produce the most relevant blog pieces. EuroDNS (2017) suggests that in a sporting environment, it is vitally important to make sure the content is relevant. In instances where the content is produced too far in advance of the event means that the content could be outdated, as there may have been other matches which have happened since then, and form is the most important factor in any form of sports betting (Beech, 2019).
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The second section of the 30-day content plan graphic is the green oval. The green oval represents the blog going live on Talking Bull (u1661531.co.uk). At this point, the blog has been fully drafted and proofread before being published for public viewing. However, what is not shown in the graphic is that each post was scheduled to go live at 13:00 on the day of the Premier League of Darts events, only 6 hours 30 minutes before the event takes place.
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The final section of the 30-day content plan is the purple chevron. The purple chevron represents the Social Media Promotion stage. The Social Media Promotion stage is notably longer than either of the content preparation and the blog going live stage, as in essence, the Social Media Promotion stage is a continuous phase which is present through the whole campaign. The only reason I have given the Social Media Promotion stage a finite end during each week is due to the removal of affiliate links to the previous weeks' blog posts, as it would make no sense to promote the blog post for the previous week when the event has already taken place!
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The post shown above is an example of the content posted on Instagram during other events, which are between the Premier League of Darts events. The images used have been sourced and credited in the post. In the comments section of the Instagram post, I also posted the most frequently interacted with hashtags relating to darts, according to Ingramer (n.d.), which were correct at the time of the creation of the post. Myers (2020) suggests that by posting 11 or more hashtags, the post is going to receive 442% more engagement than by posting with no hashtags. Myers (2020) also goes onto suggesting that using the comments section to post these hashtags may gain further interaction as the hashtags often appear hidden and therefore look less 'spammy'.
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Shown above is a video displaying Instagram stories posted when blog posts went live. A commonplace of these stories is that they feature animated graphics promoting the viewer to click the link in the bio of the profile takes them to the latest blog post.
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In terms of more general content, third-party images were used, meaning image source links were displayed and credited it to meet plagiarism requirements. The blog also had a contact page, which was also had attached to it the Talking Bull privacy policy, therefore meeting GDPR requirements. Furthermore, the blog also had a comment section, which received one comment during the 30-day campaign, and the Akismet plugin was used to remove any potential spam comments. Google reCAPTCHA was also installed on the blog to stop bot users from visiting the site. To meet GDPR regulations with the social media interaction the bio on all social media accounts suggest that only people over the age of 18 should follow the account, due to it being illegal and also unethical to promote gambling to people under 18.
