In previous digital artefacts, I often tailored them to benefit my journalism career and work at AUD’$, Australia’s Hip-hop connect. As this is my final semester at university, I decided to do something different and focus on my clothing brand, Moriboys. I started the brand back in November of 2020 with the purpose of capturing Australia’s Hip-hop culture through streetwear fashion and collaborative merchandise for artists. Working within the music industry, I’ve developed a plethora of contacts and niche understanding of my target audience and consumer needs.
Originally in my pitch, I outlined that I would be posting 3-4 times a week across my network of social medias including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter. Unfortunately, this was a little over confident on my behalf and I underestimated the amount of BTS work that goes into starting up an independent clothing brand.
A lot of the successes that my digital artefact has experienced so far is not seen by the masses but to me they are of equal importance – things like finding a place to print and embroider my tees, teaching myself design and marketing skills, and beating the postage delay odds to receive the stock. Heading into the final weeks of BCM302, I should be able to produce more content as I’ll get the final product of my Moriboys clothing and will be heading out of lockdown. This will mean I’ll be able to do photoshoots and start video content for Reels and TikTok as they seem to hold the most value in today’s digital age.
Responding to Instagram’s analytics and feedback loops, I created Moriboys Music as it directly aligns with my brand’s purpose of platforming local artists while being a source of discovery for fans. This type of content increased my audience engagement and helped me reach an average of 30 likes per post on Instagram. This was one of my favourite iterations made to my project as it has helped me build the ‘world’ of Moriboys and received support from some of the featured artists too. Pinterest has also been useful in prototyping what my brand positioning may look like on other platforms.
In regards to my main goal of releasing the first Moriboys collection, I predict I’m on track for an early November release but beforehand there are a few tasks that need attending to. Firstly, I need to redesign my prototype Squarespace website to include more personality and functionality for it to be the monetary platform for my project. This is something I’m really excited for as it will be my first directly monetizable digital artefact.
Secondly, I’m committed to creating a bigger social media presence especially in the lead up to the clothing’s release. This will give me a greater opportunity for valuable feedback loops and I’ll be able to better cater to my audience’s digital habits and hopefully, increase sales.
If you’d like to support my Digital Artefact, you can follow Moriboys on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok & Spotify.
Frank Tremain.
Frank Tremain 
Hey Frank, Its been great to watch your Digital Artefact grow over the past few months. Your concept was great even in your pitch and its nice to see that you’ve only made it so much stronger, whilst also bringing some of your ideas to life.. Heres what I think you could work on to push Moriboys to have more engagement and interaction.
POSTING:
Instagram is an exceptional platform what what you’re looking to build on.. however there are a few things I think you should consider to increase the interaction and engagement with your audience. (there are many ways to gain attraction and interaction from the right audience heres a few to help
1. Posting more regularly – everyone says this and I know how annoying it is, but I believe you should be more anti fragile with your posting. I can see the content you release on social media is thought out, but posting anywhere from 2-3 times a week will bring you higher and higher up on your followers algorithm.. Meaning even If they are only on instagram for 5 minutes, your post is still likely to get engagement.
2. I can’t stress this enough be Anti-fragile. No one will think that deep into your content except you – it sounds harsh but its the truth. Instagram isnt known for being a place of extensive in depth full coverage content. its the aesthetic, the relevance, the materialism some would even argue. Every post doesn’t need to be in depth about what you’re doing or how the brand is coming along. Some posts can simply just be for “the aesthetic” I saw your Pinterest boards – these kinds of “filler photos” are a great for this.. This is what people will share to their stories more often than not – therefore better engagement.
3. brand awareness – Every time you like, comment, share, repost, reply, story, to someone else you are sticking your brands name in the comments section, or in someones DMs, Comment on relevant hashtags, comment on popular artists, like other peoples comments or reply to their comments, get a conversation going.. after all, everyone loves a good stalk and if you have a good chat with them more often than not they’ll follow you. This is a great way to get quality leads and a better defined audience. (These will all be people who share the same interest as your page.)
– I could literally go on forever about instagram and how to pump out content, engage audiences, and how to grow your following so if you need a hand or ever want to chat please just reach out. I research and employ these methods in my part time job.
LOGISTICS:
1. I love that you are so invested in this, you’ve jumped straight in and are completely crushing it. I believe this is going to be something that you’re going to be continuing after your time at university which is fantastic there is so much potential for Moriboys.au. I think that even if you just kept track of the physical side of the brand (clothing, and Spotify) you could potentially hire someone to do your social media posting for you, you could ask first years who are stuck on a DA to give running your instagram a go. Not only do you get some help but you are also giving someone else practical experience. Not having monetised Moriboys yet, I can understand that hiring someone to do this can be costly so maybe even offer experience and a Tee for their work with you, I don’t know – but you get the point.
2. I love the two shirts you’ve shown. The black and purple are great. depending on what you want to sell as as a brand this is totally up to you.. but never underestimate the basic colours. These at the end of the day will sell.. Which is why your poll had more people voting for the black over the purple. People don’t want to spend money on something that they can only wear with certain outfits. They want to get as much use out of it as they can.. Black, white, Light beige, White shirt with different coloured embroidery, that’ll be what sells. People give more time and attention to their clothing aesthetic so fall into that aesthetic and people will buy. In saying that though, these nothing worse than no variety or monochrome, Black/white clothing brands. Add some colour but stock wise be wary that It won’t sell as fast as the neutrals.
Lastly, I saw you have a tiktok account. MAKE MOOD PLAYLISTS I can’t tell you how many times I listen to playlists that are named after the mood im in. You can incorporate the songs that give off the same vibe and name the playlist something like “songs that make me feel like im Bondi beach” or something of the sort… It sounds stupid but its a great way to get recognition on Spotify. sharing the playlists on Tiktok will help engage the right audiences too, especially as your aim is to get more attraction to the Aus music industry, This is a perfect way to do that. Look them up on tiktok, they’re easy to make. Or even make recommendation videos. “if you like lime cordiale listen to these songs” then play the best snippets of each song (with the name and artist of course, so people can go download them) – you can even take these TikToks and turn them into reels – theres a certain way to do it so you’ll get more engagement in your reels than just having the tiktok as a video – message me if you ever want to know how
Your concept is amazing and I hope that my tips are able to help you in the long run, This has so much potential and is already on the way to truely becoming something great.. I can’t wait to see everything come together come release day!
Melanie
(Twitter: Melanienickl1 – if you want to reach out about anything)
Best of luck
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