Over the course of making my media texts, I used a variety of methods to get audience feedback. This is because my promotional campaign is dependent on consumers and people buying into it. So, making sure advertising suits and interests the audience is really key because it makes consumers and target audiences more likely to pay attention and look into your brand. This is why I aimed my promotional campaign at young people and that is where I got the majority of my audience feedback from. If people like my campaign, they will spend money on albums, merchandise etc so audience feedback and getting what they like is of the utmost importance.
One of these methods was emailing the whole school. I used this method because it’s an easy way to reach a lot of people simultaneously. I emailed a Survey Monkey questionnaire which had a few formal questions for them to answer about what they thought of my website such as “What do you like and what could be improved for the home page?” This method gave me honest feedback as it was anonymous. I found it very useful as it let me know what people liked and if I needed to change anything. For example, they all liked the strong red colour theme but thought the spotify link could be joined with a logo to make it clearer what the spotify link is. A downside of this method could be that people often open their emails on their phone and so go to the mobile version of my website rather than the computer one which is completely different as I’ve only worked on the computer version.
One of these methods was emailing the whole school. I used this method because it’s an easy way to reach a lot of people simultaneously. I emailed a Survey Monkey questionnaire which had a few formal questions for them to answer about what they thought of my website such as “What do you like and what could be improved for the home page?” This method gave me honest feedback as it was anonymous. I found it very useful as it let me know what people liked and if I needed to change anything. For example, they all liked the strong red colour theme but thought the spotify link could be joined with a logo to make it clearer what the spotify link is. A downside of this method could be that people often open their emails on their phone and so go to the mobile version of my website rather than the computer one which is completely different as I’ve only worked on the computer version.
I've also shown people the website either in groups of two or three or one to one - I got some really good feedback from this from a couple people but it could've been improved as I was the one navigating the website instead of them so I couldn't get feedback on whether stuff is easy to find because I was showing them exactly what I knew what was there rather than them discovering it. This is where the emailing was better because it flagged up things like the spotify link not being clear. The people I showed the website to suggested I put the text on the merchandise page in bordered boxes. One person said, “Why don’t you group the merchandise in coloured boxes?” I followed this advice and made the change to make it look more professional. I put the merchandise text in a black box and made the text red to fit in with the colour theme. They also told me to add additional details to the contact form. However, I didn’t follow this advice because I felt additional details were unnecessary as the website has a contact form already. Plus, I wanted to keep the website fairly simple so that the audience doesn’t get bored or bogged down by information.
I also did some test screenings of the music video with small groups of people which was okay but I had to prompt most people into saying constructive criticism as most people just said that "It's good,” rather than giving proper criticism. I also tried to get feedback by posting a draft of the video on Facebook and letting people comment. However, I found this method not too good because people were hesitant to put their opinions on a public online post. I did get some ideas for the video though when I pushed people into saying more about it. For example, someone suggesting cutting a shot of the boy in the graveyard differently to get across the boy's emotions better. I ended up following this advice because it gave that scene a bit more meaning and depth.
As with some examples that I’ve previously mentioned, my audience research provided me with a lot of ideas and suggestions of things to change. For example, there was dialogue in the video previously but feedback from my audience reinforced my initial thoughts that it wasn’t needed and that it seemed out of place so I decided not to include it. I also followed my audience feedback with ideas about the banner in my magazine advert. Someone suggested having a translucent banner rather than an opaque one or no banner. I followed this advice and added a red banner because I originally thought it was a good idea to have the banner opaque because it makes it clear that the text and logos aren't part of the picture but I was worried it would look out of place as it wouldn’t fit with the photo. This is a good example of an idea I hadn't thought of but used anyway. I would get around this next time by making sure I fully know the capabilities of programs like Photoshop because I feel like I would've had more ideas had I known more about Photoshop and had the confidence to use it. Audience feedback helped me a lot with the website especially and I have multiple posts about it on my blog including more about how I responded to the feedback. For example, in a group of 3 people looking at the website, someone said “Maybe you should put the ETSY link in a box to make it stand out more?” So, I gave the link and text a red outline.
I got a lot of feedback from individuals who were more interested in media etc than the average person. E.g. other media students or teachers. This helped me a lot because the feedback was normally really detailed. For example, it was pointed out that a shot in the beginning of the student fighting the teacher lacked continuity due to the placement of his hand so I fixed this. It was suggested to have the poster writing changed to make it stand out more so I made it white instead. Lots of little advice like this really helped me because it helped me fix little mishaps which otherwise would've gone under the radar which would've made my work that little bit more unprofessional.
I got a lot of feedback from individuals who were more interested in media etc than the average person. E.g. other media students or teachers. This helped me a lot because the feedback was normally really detailed. For example, it was pointed out that a shot in the beginning of the student fighting the teacher lacked continuity due to the placement of his hand so I fixed this. It was suggested to have the poster writing changed to make it stand out more so I made it white instead. Lots of little advice like this really helped me because it helped me fix little mishaps which otherwise would've gone under the radar which would've made my work that little bit more unprofessional.
If I did this differently, I would use a lot more surveys emailed to the whole school. This is because it reaches a lot of people (especially young people which is who the product is mainly aimed at) and it is anonymous. I think getting audience feedback from younger people was good because they are more aware of the technologies I’m using and what I can do with them. So, I made sure to get some of my friends who were familiar with photoshop to have a look at the magazine advert as photoshop was the program I used and they thought of ideas that I didn’t know you could do with photoshop. I think I was quite objective but the thing holding me back was not knowing the full capabilities of some of the tech that I was using. Also, I won't be there to influence what people say and people will write what they think rather than what anyone else thinks. I would also reach out to people who aren’t necessarily my friends or my age. This is because they are more likely to be objective and also have different ideas to me.
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