Hello everyone and welcome back to blog post #3!
Our action project centers on increasing awareness of Ruckle Provincial Park through the creation and management of an Instagram page that highlights the park’s historical importance, natural beauty, and role as a valued BC provincial park. By leveraging social media, we aim to educate, engage, and inspire the public—particularly younger audiences—to appreciate and support local parks. This involves carefully planning and sharing meaningful content, promoting the page to expand its audience, and collaborating closely with local experts like Brenda to ensure our information is accurate and respectful. Through this digital platform, we hope to build a lasting connection between people and the park. Ultimately, our goal is to encourage ongoing community support and stewardship for this treasured natural space.
1. Where We Are At So Far!
One of the most important steps we’ve taken so far is meeting with Brenda, our community expert with extensive experience in environmental education. She helped us develop a clear plan and granted us access to the Instagram page we’ll be managing for Ruckle Park. This was a crucial milestone—now we’ve moved beyond planning and are actively putting our project into action. We’re excited to see how our efforts will grow and make a positive impact on the community.
Brenda also advised us on how to begin growing a following for the page before we start posting content about the park. She recommended focusing initially on promoting the Instagram account itself to build momentum and attract a larger audience. This approach provides us with a solid base, so when we begin sharing meaningful posts, they’ll reach more people effectively. Building this early interest is key to creating a strong and engaged community around the park. With a growing audience, our educational and inspirational content will have a greater chance to make a lasting impact.
2. Some Successes We Have Seen
One definite success so far is that our Instagram page has begun attracting followers. While the numbers are still modest, the steady growth shows there’s genuine interest. Each new follower is a small victory, as it means more people will have the chance to discover and appreciate the park’s history, natural beauty, and significance. This early progress motivates us to keep creating meaningful content and expanding our reach.
Another success is how well our team has been communicating and collaborating, particularly when it comes to planning our next steps. Thanks to Brenda’s valuable guidance, we’ve been able to stay organized and move beyond the initial planning phase — often the most challenging part of any project. This strong teamwork has kept us motivated and focused on our goals. We’re confident that maintaining this momentum will help us achieve meaningful results.
3. A Couple Challenges We Have Faced
Like any project, we’ve faced some challenges along the way. One of the biggest is finding the balance between growing our Instagram page and staying true to our core mission: raising awareness about Ruckle Park. It can be tempting to post trendy or unrelated content just to attract followers, but we’re committed to sharing material that genuinely reflects the park’s authentic story. Staying focused helps us build trust with our audience and ensures our message remains meaningful. We believe that genuine engagement is more valuable than quick popularity.
To address this, we’ve been exploring different strategies to promote the page while remaining true to our core message. This includes using hashtags related to nature, history, and BC parks, as well as collaborating with other local accounts to share or repost our content. By doing this, we aim to broaden our audience without losing focus on the park’s story. We’re also paying close attention to what resonates with our followers to refine our approach over time. This ongoing process helps ensure our efforts stay effective and meaningful.
4. The Next Steps and Why
Next, we’re preparing to launch our first Instagram post or story. This is an important milestone, as it will establish the style and message for all future content. We aim to make it informative, visually engaging, and authentic to the spirit of Ruckle Park. We want to capture the park’s unique history and natural beauty in a way that resonates with our audience. This first post will set the foundation for building a strong, connected community around the park.
We’re also developing a posting schedule, deciding whether daily, weekly, or bi-weekly updates work best. Additionally, our team will hold weekly meetings to collect information, craft captions, and come up with creative and engaging ways to showcase the park. This consistent teamwork will help us stay organized and ensure our content remains fresh and meaningful. By staying on a regular schedule, we can build anticipation and keep our audience engaged. It also allows us to adapt quickly based on feedback and new ideas.
That is all for blog post #3. I hope you stay along for the rest of the journey!
Hello, Eden,
Your blog post is very well-written and logically developed! It is clear that you are very passionate about raising awareness for Ruckle Park, and you have already successfully got me interested in learning more about Ruckle Park! It is a very interesting and modern idea to do this through Social Media as we are very much in the middle of the digital age right now, as people of all age become more and more stuck to their phone, Social Media becomes one of the best tools to make awareness of something!
If I had to point out one thing that might help your project even further is the development of a tiktok account as it is easier to grow your page and raise awareness than Instagram. And you don’t have to do it to attract unwanted attention or rude tourists, you can focus on posting beautiful photos of the park, and with a solid follower base you can begin to tell the authentic tale of the park!
I am looking forward to your next blog posts!
-Scott Lyu