{Ladyspike Media} — Grant Report #{2}

Caitlin Arcand — Sat, 15 May 2021 04:00:01 +0000

Project Update

Ladyspike has been doing great in our second quarter of the grant! We have been able to up viewership on the site and I, the founder, was named one of Buzzfeed's 2021 Women to Watch for my work on the website, which is definitely a major deal for us. In terms of marketing, we didn't do as much as planned these past few months, mostly due to the cost of maintaining the website and paying writers. But luckily, we were able to add some more, higher-profile writers to our site, which will give us credibility going forward. We are noticing so much more engagement with the site and can't wait to see where it takes us!

Progress on objectives

In our original objectives, we have a very big focus on marketing and creating content. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, creating content in person was not in the cards for us. But we were able to allot that money to hiring more writers and gaining more contributions each month. For the second quarter, we focused less on marketing and more on actual article acquisition, because what's the point in having followers if you have nothing to show them? We were able to lock down some awesome interviews with comedians like Jen Kirkman, and that's been really exciting.

Key activities

Some key activities outlined in our original proposal were creating filmed content, marketing and paying writers. Two of those we were able to successfully accomplish! We grew our social media accounts by about 4,500 followers, hired an awesome team of 20+ writers and have been successfully pumping out up to 2 articles per day. With Covid, filming in person became difficult and we chose to allot that money elsewhere, but we can't wait to tackle that in the near future.

Communications and marketing

Communications and marketing have been a huge part of this journey for us. We promoted our social accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) and started running paid ads for our articles. The way we put out information to our audiences has drastically changed and evolved over the past few months. Thanks to the grant, we've been able to try out new advertising methods and designs using Canva and Facebook/Instagram ads. Our engagement has nearly quadrupled, and we've had 4 posts with over 1,000 likes in the past few months.

What’s next?

What's next? Hopefully filming in-person content! We can't wait to put our talented roster to use and create more content for our followers. We will also continue to really push marketing and communications, and hopefully, reach our goal of 10,000 followers.

What community support would benefit your project?

We are always looking for suggestions on ways to improve our website and make it more user-friendly!

Additional comments

We are so thankful to Grant for the Web for this opportunity to grow our little site!

www.ladyspikemedia.com

{Ladyspike Media} — Grant Report #{1}

Caitlin Arcand — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:19:15 +0000

Project Update

Hello! We are Ladyspike Media, an all-female and LGBTQ comedy platform. Our goal for this grant was to bring awareness to our website and mission, attract a wider audience and develop our new website on WordPress, using the Coil plugin. And we are happy to report, all is going well! Since the beginning of the grant, our social media accounts have grown by over 5k and our daily viewership on the website has nearly doubled. We have been able to produce more articles daily due to our funding for writer pay, allowing us to generate more content to share with the world. Because of our new exposure, we've been able to lock down interviews with famous comedians Jen Kirkman and Melinda Hill, and have even had Instagram shout outs from Jameela Jamil.

Progress on objectives

Starting out this project, our main objectives were to increase the amount of daily content, increase more viewership, and develop more video content. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, the video content has been more difficult than anticipated. However, we refocused and were able to put our energy into interviews with higher profile comedians for exposure, and the development of our website. Our social media following has grown significantly, and as a result, we are experiencing more daily viewership on the website as a whole. Originally, we had projected producing 10 articles per day at this point, which was definitely higher than necessary and more than we can handle at our current staff capacity. However, being able to pay writers has helped our site so much. We've been able to accept more articles than ever before, publish more content, and have more experienced writers with large web followings.

Key activities

As said above, our key activity that did not work out was our video content. This was mostly due to safety precautions during Covid, and something we definitely plan to pursue in the future. Despite our difficulties, we were able to produce a few episodes of a new show headed by comedian Anastasia Washington, called The Woke Report, which will premiere next month. In terms of our other activities, our marketing and publishing have been going well! We have implemented several new marketing tactics such as boosted posts, influencer marketing, interactive graphics, and web ads. We are on track to meet our goal of 10k followers on Instagram by the end of the project. We have also significantly revamped our WordPress website using video and blogging plugins, and becoming more knowledgeable about the site overall. Our writing team has grown by about 10 writers, allowing us to have more diverse content.

Communications and marketing

Marketing was a large part of our proposed budget, and what we have focused the majority of our energy on. As stated above, we have implemented many new tactics with our funding including boosted posts, influencer marketing, interactive graphics, and web ads. Influencer marketing has definitely been our biggest success, so we are extremely grateful to have had the budget to pursue it. Influencer posts have increased our following by about 200-300 Instagram followers per post. Web ads, specifically Facebook and Twitter, have been helpful in expanding our viewership on a national level.

What’s next?

Well, we definitely want to create more video content! But until we can do that safely, we will continue with our marketing tactics and hopefully continue to produce quality humor content on a daily basis. We plan to keep on all of our new writers and focus on generating more income from the website to support this. This will include the implementation of sponsored posts and ad placement, encouraging Coil memberships and more premium content.

What community support would benefit your project?

I would love to hear about similar websites' Coil experience and how they have successfully encouraged readers to sign up for premium content.

Relevant links/resources

https://www.ladyspikemedia.com/exclusive-award-winning-comedian-melinda-hill-releases-new-special-inappropriate/

https://www.ladyspikemedia.com/jen-kirkman-is-bringing-the-holiday-spirit-right-to-your-living-room-with-annual-dysfunctional-xmas-show/

https://www.ladyspikemedia.com/woman-who-yells-eat-the-rich-getting-really-into-bridgerton/

The Interledger Community 🌱: Caitlin Arcand

{Ladyspike Media} — Grant Report #{2}

Project Update

Progress on objectives

Key activities

Communications and marketing

What’s next?

What community support would benefit your project?

Additional comments

www.ladyspikemedia.com

{Ladyspike Media} — Grant Report #{1}

Project Update

Progress on objectives

Key activities

Communications and marketing

What’s next?

What community support would benefit your project?

Relevant links/resources