The Ryerson Entertainment Conference is a student-run organization of Ryerson University, that focuses on creating events, opportunities, and resources for Ryerson Students in commerce and the creative industries.
One of our team's marketing goals this year was to create more of an engaged community around the brand, and brand REC as more of a resource than a student group, as many students right now are looking to learn and advance their careers during their increased time at home. As a marketing lead, a campaign I created to help cultivate this image was #Freelance101. Since many creative professionals consider freelance work during school, but are often unsure how to begin, I leveraged my network to find 5 freelance creatives willing to speak to our audience, interviewed them via. google forms and documented their answers in a blog post focused on how to get started as a freelance creative, with our student audience in mind (which you can read here). I then coordinated a series of Instagram Takeovers, where each week, one of the creatives I interviewed would "take over" our instagram story, and take us through a day in the life of their freelance practice, answering questions from our social media audience along the way. The content that resulted was authentic, meaningful, and insightful, and the creatives did a fantastic job of answering questions about their respective work and industries.
Conceptualizing and organizing this campaign I honed the skill of curating content and choosing topics that resonate with our student following. I learned that successfully growing a social community means meaningfully engaging with and highlighting members of your target audience, resulting in meaningful, authentic storytelling that positively impacts the members and your broader audience, and conveys valuable insight to your following.
Graphics & Campaign Visual Identity by Soraya Sachedina
