Link to Medium article: https://medium.com/@nicoleong0318/so-me-all-in-one-social-media-analytics-web-application-7868a6456762
Project Overview
I aimed to develop a website or web application that is similar to a Software-as-a-Service (SAAS). This product serves to give influencers and content creators a way to track their growth as well as learn and find opportunities to grow more on their social media platforms. For some, social media platforms could also be their main source of income. Hence in this project, I designed a website with a dashboard that helps consolidate all social media accounts belonging to an individual, allowing them to track their growth on each platform.
My rationale for choosing this project is because I am a content creator myself, and I wanted to create a platform that would be very useful for myself and fellow content creators or influencers. While there was limited time to conduct extensive user research through interviews and surveys, I personally have used multiple avenues in order to track my social media growth on various accounts such as YouTube Studio, Instagram analytics, Social Blade, and more. It can be frustrating to keep track of all this information on different platforms. Even worse, these platforms don’t offer tips and tricks on the art of social media marketing and growth. I would have to do a Google search to find materials and guides on how to grow my social media presence and how to gain more opportunities as a content creator. Hence, I wanted to create an all-in-one service that allows influencers to track their growth and learn about how to better their craft.
User Research & Ideation
Even though I do have experience in social media as a content creator myself, I wanted to avoid biases and create a solution that would only be useful for myself — hence I used a user journey and user personas to conduct my user research and have a better and more comprehensive ideation process.
User Journey
Personas
The rising nano influencer
The rising nano influencer, Rachel, matriculated into university and has been vlogging her experience. Besides lifestyle videos on her student life, she also creates fashion and beauty content. To date, she has collaborated with multiple e-commerce and fashion brands.
She enjoys producing videos and her videos have done well. But now that sponsorship opportunities are coming in, she wants to take her social media presence to the next level. She also wants to be more serious in tracking her growth and analytics across multiple social media platforms.
As someone who is new to the social media influencer scene, she is clueless when it comes to choosing her rates and she doesn’t even know where to start with media kits and personal branding. She scours the internet for such resources but they are often not tailored to her market, demographic, or niche. She is also unsure what the analytics on the multiple social media platforms mean for her as a budding content creator.
The seasoned socialite
The seasoned socialite, Brandon, curates videos on business, finance, and entrepreneurship. He stayed consistent in honing his video production skills which resulted in success in his influencer career. Besides collaborating with multiple fintech and tech businesses, he has also created his own brand and sells merchandise as well as courses on business and trading.
He wants to grow his business and let his content reach more people. While he is familiar with the algorithm on the social media platforms, he would like to possibly collaborate with other content creators to bounce ideas off each other and to grow. He is also willing to collaborate with smaller content creators in hopes to reach new audiences in different demographics.
As a seasoned influencer, he finds it a hassle to have to look at each website and social media platform to track his performance. He also wants to know which platform is bringing traffic to his business and driving sales for him. Having such knowledge will help him double down on the right platform to allow him to get more revenue and grow his business.
Bearing in mind the project statement and overview, along with the user research, below are the three key user tasks:
- Track social media performance, analytics, revenue, growth, etc. over different periods (e.g. week — last 7 days, month — last 28 days, 1 year — last 365 days, etc.)
- Editorial blog to provide guides and resources, especially for budding influencers
- Explore companies who want to engage with influencers for marketing (influencer marketing, paid sponsorships, etc.)
This is a list of features and other user tasks that can be added to SO ME in the future.
- View similar social media influencers or content creators
- View growth projections
- Connect with influencers (to collaborate, for mentorship, or for recruitment into agencies, etc.)
Popular social media platforms include:
- YouTube
- TikTok
The three platforms above are the main social media platforms used by influencers. Imagining SO ME to be a software-as-a-service (SAAS) startup, the minimum viable product will include only the platforms above but in the future, SO ME can include other social media platforms like Twitch and Facebook.
Instagram stats to track:
- Number of followers growth over different periods of time
- Number of likes in each post
- Number of views for reels
YouTube stats to track:
- Number of subscribers growth over different periods of time
- Number of views over different periods of time
- Ad revenue over different periods of time
TikTok stats to track:
- Number of followers growth over different periods of time
- Number of likes
- Number of views
Depending on the timeframe the user is checking, e.g. Last 7 days, Last 90 days, etc, the graph or chart will be displayed in a different form such as a line graph, bar chart, or pie chart.
Wireframe/Low-fidelity Prototype
In the first iteration of the design, which subsequently underwent changes, I worked on the three key use cases and chose to go with a dashboard design because of the amount of analytical data that will be shown to the user. Like YouTube Studio, Social blade, and other performance-tracking apps and websites, I wanted SO ME to be simple to use and navigate.
Another component that was very important for SO ME was the dropdown menu to view the social media growth over different periods in time.
As seen in the low-fi prototype image below, the right-most image has a post-it note. To elaborate, I was actually intending to have an extra “Submit” page after clicking “Apply” on the Explore page but it felt like an extra unnecessary step. Instead, I intended for the user to be able to immediately send an application to the brand which the brand managers/staff will review. After approval, the brand can reach out to the user through a message in the Message tab of SO ME.
Unlike those platforms, SO ME is able to show data from different social media accounts. In the end, this is my final low-fi prototype which I settled on before proceeding to design the hi-fi prototype.
High-fidelity Prototype
The link to the Figma file: https://www.figma.com/file/3oJRnC7beIxMnxycN0jsNU/SO-ME?node-id=0%3A1
The dashboard page(s) where users can view their statistics and analytics across their social media platforms.
The editorial blog page(s) where users can learn more about different ways to grow their social media presence/channels/accounts.
The dashboard page(s) is where users can view their statistics and analytics across their social media platforms.
Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed this design exercise because I got to put user research tools into action such as user journey mapping and user persona creations. I got to see firsthand how these processes can help in the ideation and creation of the solution.
Beyond the research aspect, I loved getting to learn how to do different interaction design components on Figma such as a dropdown menu with different variations and states. I also got to familiarise myself a lot more to scrolling mechanics. I also learned how to make piecharts in Figma.