Goals/Vision
Marketers around the world are witnessing the rise of influencers on social platforms. As influencers grew to become the main resource for purchasing advice, brands sought them out to recommend their products. Access influence was meant to simplify this process and provide both brands and influencers the easy access to collaborate.
Deliverables
We wanted to create a web platform for brands to conduct their influencer marketing jobs and an app for influencers to easily work with the brands. The platforms were to interact with each other and allow influencers to send in content for brands to approve and pay.
Success Criteria
We determined success was a platform that efficiently brought together 10-20 companies and influencers per month for the first year. Through a simplified experience and a clear path towards completing project, both parties should be able to get their work done through the platforms.
My Process
We began our research on the net scowering around for proof of concept. Once we determined we had sufficient data on the industry it was time to conduct a competitive analysis and learn from the players already providing similar services to ours in the industry. We conducted SWOT analyses on various platforms to feed our design ideas and requirements. Through these analyses we discovered a big blocker in the industry was social media platforms themselves. Facebook and Instagram were not making it easy for businesses to take advantage of the influencer industry by blocking automatic posting, adding sponsored labels to paid posts, and not allowing scheduled posts.
47%
of consumers world wide are using ad blockers
5 out of 10,000
people actually click on ads
93%
of consumers purchase based on word of mouth
User Personas
Various personas were created to represent our two user types: brands and influencers. We broke down our brands into three different categories:
1. Small Brands
a. Company size is 1-50 people
b. Someone with more seniority would be inputting briefs. Has a role in multiple disciplines.
2. Medium Brands
a. Company size is 51-100 people
b. Someone in marketing, could vary in experience
3. Large Brands
a. Company size is 101+ people
b. Social media team would be the point of contact
Influencers came in many different shapes and sizes, but through our research we realized our most optimum solution for brands would be to provide them with access to micro-influencers. We aimed to target all influencers between 2,000 to 50,000 followers. This included influencers in all industries such as food, fashion, travel, etc.
Below are samples of some of the personas that were created off of these audiences:
User Journey
Once we determined our personas, we mapped out our different touch-points to create a journey map that we could run our personas through. Through idea mapping and brainstorm sessions, we discovered solutions the limitations that Facebook and Instagram placed on us. We found an option that allowed the influencer to create the post and save it on our app. Once it was time to publish, they would receive a notification that they would open, and it would pull the post from our app into Instagram or Facebook. The user simply had to tap publish and not recreate the post.
On the brand side we conducted a survey with various companies to determine what guidelines were commonly set in an influencer focused marketing brief. Through these surveys and analyzing copies of briefs we were able to build an online form that encompassed all project aspects. The journey map was created and based on a sequential order broken into 3 steps.
Wireframes
Once the flow was agreed on by the entire team, wireframes were put together. Different layouts were explored for the site, the homepage was designed to be informative and sell on the idea with video explanations, statistics, and a clear distinction between a brand’s path and an influencer’s path. Once the user started down a path the wireframes began to focus on conversion centered UX design.
Design
Below you can see the final product. The layout was very white and modern to highlight photos as social media platforms do. Imagery clearly depict the web app for brands and mobile app for influencers as to mitigate any confusion.
