Featured image of tarot cards (Kate Tong n.d.) via Pinterest

Social media serves as an effective medium enabling communication between users and creators. Creators can utilise the information produced and gathered on social media to identify their target audience and enhance their viewers experience (Rathore, Ilavarasan & Dwivedi 2016). However, the deployment and utilisation of social media for community engagement is plagued with numerous challenges, often leading creators and account managers to becoming increasingly frustrated due to the inability to attain their anticipated outcomes (Davids & Brown 2021). 

This week I learned that my initial assumptions were correct. By altering my content style to align with the most prevalent form that I have observed within this niche, my audience engagement improved. I had to overcome the challenge that sometimes creating something different doesn’t always work as well as you hope, at least not within a short time frame.

Sharing the content:

I uploaded my tarot card reading video to TikTok, added my caption and hashtags and nervously waited to see if anyone would interact with it. I was quite pleased when after 48 hours this TikTok video had already received more views, likes and comments than my previous 2 videos. Although I had predicted this would occur as from my previous observations, videos of tarot readings on both TikTok and Instagram receive the most engagement from this niche audience. 

@jays.bead.decor

🌙If this reading is on your FYP it is meant for you☀️ ~Take what resonates and leave what does not~ ✨You have change coming in your work life but you are ready for it  ✨This change in your work life will make you feel calmer and stable ✨But you have been waiting for this for a while and it will bring passion and excitement ✨You have worked hard for this and will continue to grow in this area of your life ✨You will feel happy and peaceful with this choice #tarot #tarotcards #tarotcardreading #astrology #fyp #foryou #spirituality #work #career #money  #kingofswords #knightofwands #temperance #theempress Disclaimer: I am not a psychic or tarot professional 

♬ Day Dream – Mark Fabian

Subsequently, I uploaded my instagram images, again adding the caption and hashtags. Curious to see if a tarot reading the form of slide images would also attract more engagement. Contraily, it received the same amount of likes and views as my previous instagram post. Perhaps my videos would perform better than image posts on this platform. I think that the lack of engagement is partly due to Instagram’s algorithm (Hill 2020).

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A post shared by Jay’s (@jays.bead.decor)

When I embarked on this research project, I presumed that creating the content would be daunting. However, I discovered that dedicating time to the task makes it quite manageable once the idea is conceived and the process initiated.

An area for improvement could be enhancing my interactions with my audience, such as more frequent liking and commenting on other tarot creators’ posts. Although, I found this challenging as sometimes the content doesn’t resonate with me.

Participation observation is becoming more prevalently utilised in qualitative research, presenting opportunities for gathering and synthesising data (Watts 2011). For anyone contemplating a similar project I would advise you to trust your instincts, but also be open to changing your approach if things aren’t working as expected. 

Upon further reflection I realised I didn’t strictly adhere to the desired format for these blogs. It also took me a while to find my voice in regard to what I was trying to say and how I wanted to say it. Even though I enjoy writing blogs I felt that two blogs for each content generation was excessive and towards the end it felt like I was running out of interesting and relevant things to discuss.

Audio summary of the blog:

References:

Creswell, John W. (2016) 30 Essential Skills for the Qualitative Researcher, Sage: Los Angeles

Davids, Z & Brown, I 2021, ‘The collective storytelling organisational framework for social media use’, Telematics and Informatics, vol. 62, p. 101636, viewed 12 October 2023, <10.1016/j.tele.2021.101636> 

Hill, C 2020, How to Survive (and outsmart) the Instagram Algorithm, Sprout Social, viewed 12 October 2023, <https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-algorithm/>

Rathore, AK, Ilavarasan, PV & Dwivedi, YK 2016, ‘Social media content and product co-creation: an emerging paradigm’, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 7–18, viewed 12 October 2023, <https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JEIM-06-2015-0047/full/html>

Tong, K n.d., Pinterest, Viewed 18 August 2023, <https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/8796161765086916/&gt;

Watts, JH 2011, ‘Ethical and practical challenges of participant observation in sensitive health research’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 301–312, viewed 12 October 2023, <10.1080/13645579.2010.517658>