Dot Lung: interview with the Mother of Social Media Dragons

Energetic, entertaining and engaging. As always, Dot Lung ‘s enthusiasm determined the success of her speech during the live streaming edition of Digital Design Days. In 15 minutes, the Mother of Social Media Dragons gave the audience a quick and precise explanation of how to maximise the efficiency of their Instagram bio. Dot’s invaluable advice wasn’t enough for us, we also wanted to know what her point of view is on design today, how it can be integrated with other communication tools and how it can foster cohesion between people during a time of crisis like the one we are currently experiencing.

So, we decided to interview you!

Here is everything she told us and what we learnt during her talk.

Design today: what are the trends and paths that have not yet been explored?

Design is the structure behind any creation and that is why I am totally obsessed with it. In social media, design plays a key role in capturing the right kind of attention and the right kind of audience. We use it to offer people positive digital experiences to make them feel, see, hear and taste your brand. We have experimented with VR and 360° immersive content resulting in content so immersive it is addictive. Now we are delving into Behavioural Design and how we can integrate it into social media to initiate positive change in the collective consciousness.

In your opinion, what are the skills that today’s designers should not lack?

Communicate your ideas directly and effectively both face-to-face and on social platforms. Communicating, negotiating and fighting to get the value of one’s creativity perceived is really an art. Most creatives and designers do not know how to value and sell their work, nor do they know how to create a catchy post that generates enthusiastic fans and a queue of customers out the door. Many are not capable – or not confident enough – to expose themselves in a ‘commercial’ way. Quoting Andy Warhol: ‘Making money is an art. Working is an art. Good business is the highest of all arts.” This is where I come in: I help creative entrepreneurs understand what to say, when to say it and how to say it on social media, so that they can build a profitable business and achieve their communication goals on these platforms.

How can design be integrated within other communication tools?

Design is communication. It should be integrated into everything! Design Thinking must be the priority in every area.

How can design help people to stay together in times of crisis like the one we are currently experiencing?

Design represents everything we do and, as designers, we are problem-solvers by nature. When the world has a problem, you can always count on a designer ready to solve it through different solutions. Digital Design Days are keeping our community cohesive, making us strong together. We are seeing many creatives explode and bring their best projects to life in an unprecedented time in history.

Participatory design is becoming more and more important nowadays. How do you manage these activities remotely? Any advice?

Keeping calm and enjoying the quiet! You may have noticed how this has forced us to participate globally in designing a better future, lowering pollution levels, keeping our skies blue and the earth green, right? My suggestion is to go back to basics, to backtrack to a ‘slower’ life. The positive effects may surprise you!

What did we learn from Dot Lung’s intervention?

When we asked the ‘Mother of Social Media Dragons’ to give us some spoilers about her talk at Digital Design Days, she replied as follows:

“I will teach how to become a specialist by harnessing the potential of Instagram, through building a profitable bio and explain how to create stories that sell.”

Indeed, in addition to a focused and precise tutorial on how to curate one’s Instagram bio, we saw with Dot some very interesting data on social media usage and user behaviour during the Covid-19 emergence. These include a ranking of the most downloaded apps during these months of isolation:

• Tik Tok
• Whatsapp
• Facebook
• Facebook Messenger
• Instagram
• Zoom

In short, in the top five most downloaded applications in the world, three are social platforms. This means that the presence on social networks is constantly increasing, and those who want to exploit these platforms for their business must take care of their online presence as much as possible.

How? Starting with your Instagram bio, for example!

What we have learnt from Dot Lung is that everything starts with the bio, as it is our business card. Creating the perfect bio is a matter of art and science and we need it to attract the audience we really want to address.

The perfect bio must therefore be structured in 4 parts:

• Who you are: Who you are and what you do should be the first things a person reads when they land on your profile.
• Who you serve: Make explicit who you would like to work with, ask yourself what kind of users you would like to be contacted by.
• How can youhelp: Be clear about the benefits your users can gain from following you, how can you help them?
• Call to action: whether “follow me” or “send a message” or “read my blog” always remember to include a CTA.