A 2022 RETROSPECTION
Compliment of the season! As the year 2022 finally winds down, I would like to thank you for being a part of StudentsWhoCreate (SWC) whether you are a subscriber or a follower across any of our social media platforms. Your like, share, retweet, repost, comment and support means a lot and it helped achieve the growth StudentsWhoCreate experienced and from the bottom of my heart, I say a huge thank you!
Since it’s the end of the year, I would like to share the growth SWC experienced and what that meant in real numbers. In July when SWC clocked one year, I was going to share some numbers and lessons I learned managing this publication in its first year and what the experience has been like but unfortunately, I didn’t get around to it.
At the beginning of the year, I had plans to focus on SWC to publish more and grow the publication but along the way I couldn’t give as much as I wanted to the publication but despite that, SWC grew and was able to achieve what it did because of the support it got from you all.
The year started with me reaching out to a lot of student creatives and I got a lot of positive responses - about 90%. A lot of people were open and willing to share their stories and I remain grateful to everyone who made time and chose to share their story whether they have been published or not. Like I always say after every interview I do, Thank you for choosing to share your story with me.
THE YEAR IN NUMBERS
For this post, I want to share what this years growth meant in numbers to StudentsWhoCreate (SWC)
At the beginning of the year, SWC had just 6 interviews published on the website. Over the course of the year, SWC published 16 amazing interviews with student creatives across art, design, music, photography and content creation.
SWC started the year with just 30 subscribers but now have over 120 people subscribed; who receive our interviews straight into their inboxes with an average open rate of 35%.
SWC started the year with about 40 followers on Instagram without a presence on any other platform. As part of the strategy to increase its social media presence and reach, SWC became active on Twitter in Q1 and also became active on LinkedIn in Q3. With its presence on Twitter and LinkedIn, SWC saw it followers grow to 450+ across the 3 platforms with LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram making up 10%, 45%, and 45% respectively.
While SWC only had all of its impressions - which was less than 10K - from Instagram and WhatsApp for 2021, with the addition of Twitter and LinkedIn, SWC saw its social media impression grow to 100K+ across all platforms; with 95%+ of it coming from Twitter.
For 2021, SWC had 1000+ visits to the website but for 2022, SWC saw 4000+ visits to the website with an average of 1000+ visits per quarter.
TOP 5 MOST READ INTERVIEWS
While we published 16 amazing interviews, the top 5 most read interviews according to the data are;
5. Lasko Blark: Self-Contained Old Skool Gemini with no time for Kompetition
4. Tobiloba: Designing for Startups, studying English, and Everything in Between
3. Razak: The Danfo Boy Studying Graphic Design Who Has Never Felt Like Quitting
2. Felix: Computer Freak turn Multidisciplinary Designer
1. Feyi: Switching from Software Development to UI/UX Design
While these numbers may not be internet-breaking, I am super proud of them because they were achieved with no external funding or paid ads but through organic reach, word of mouth, likes, reposts, and retweets by all of you. Thank you for all the support and I hope I can count on your continued support in 2023.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2023
For 2023, you should expect more interesting interviews and other exciting activities from SWC. I hope to get SWC first international student feature, if you know or are an African student creative currently in any African higher institution, feel free to get in touch.
I hope that SWC will continue to grow and expand with your support. If you are a student creative in any creative field and will love to be featured, feel free to fill out this form and I will be in touch. Also, If you would love to be a part of SWC or become a campus rep to help source for creatives to be featured on your campus, feel free to reach out via studentswhocreate@gmail.com or send a DM via any of our social media handles.
If you are a brand or individual who loves what SWC does and would love to partner, sponsor or support, feel free to get in touch. I am looking forward to our first partnership and sponsorship in 2023.
Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay up to date.
THANK YOU!!! SEE YOU IN 2023!!!
Thank you for reading and don’t forget to share the story