CONTEXT

Duration
6 Weeks

Roles
Researcher, UX Designer, and UI Designer

Tools
Figma
Google Surveys
Maze

How is social media as a marketing tool changing the way we operate?

Becoming a creator as a full-time job in 2020 is a very normal and a common path people take when deciding what to do for a living. According to Katie Sehl’s article on Hootsuite, social media spending as a percent of marketing spend is expected to rise by 73% over the next 5 years. Thus, making the power of social media and the importance of creators that much more prevalent.

What is Notam?

Notam is a mobile application that aims to put more power, opportunity, and transparency in the hands of creators when it comes to creating and building relationships with businesses. The platform helps foster successful, lasting relationships between the two by helping both parties find excatly what they’re looking for in a social media marketing campaign/opportunity.

SOLUTION

Know your worth. Know your audience.

My solution to helping creators take advantage of the increase in social media marketing spend by businesses is to help them find and apply for brand deals they’d be a good fit for. The platform gives creators insight into their profile’s metrics and value and helps them find opportunities in line with their audience’s demographics, desires, and values.

RESEARCH

Target Users

Notam is for creators who rely on their social media presence to make a living. The platform also caters to creators who want to be influencers as a hobby or creative outlet. In general, creators can find brand deals and opportunities that match their skills and lifestyle.

Initial Goals

The idea for Notam came when multiple creators mentioned the best way to find brand deals was to either DM the company on their preferred social media platform or send a cold call email to a very generic email address.

To gather deeper insights on the process, I conducted a user survey and interviewed a couple of creators. My questions sought to gather information about existing resources and the pain points experienced in the process of finding and applying for a brand deal.

User Survey

The statistics below were drawn from a user survey completed by 30 creators -

Storytelling

In my user interviews, some of the questions included a storytelling exercise. I asked interviewees to imagine they are looking for a company to partner with.

Questions -

1. How do you decide if the company or brand deal is a good fit for you?

2. What do you do if you can’t find a point of contact?

Journey Map

To identify the pain points in the current process of finding and applying for a brand deal I created a journey map for one of my personas.

DEFINE

Pain Points

Based on the research I conducted, the most common problems that creators experienced when finding and applying for a brand deal were -

1. Hard to find businesses and opportunities that are in line with the creator’s values and their audience’s demographics.

2. Creators don’t know the value of their profile and feel they’re not being compensated adequately.

3. Lack access to enough information about a brand deal campaign to assess whether or not they’d be a good fit for the opportunity.

“How might we?” questions to help guide my design decisions -

How might we empower creators when searching for a brand deal opportunity to create a lasting, successful relationship with the business?

Rethinking the Brand Deal Process

To remove some of the hurdles when finding and applying for a brand deal, I thought about making key points in the creator’s journey a bit more manageable.

IDEATION

User Flows

Sketch Wireframes

Before moving to Figma, I sketched wireframes to guide my design decisions and interactions.

Low Fidelity Prototype

To test the features I designed to help alleviate the pain points I identified during the discovery phase of this project, I created low fidelity wireframes in Figma.

The low fidelity prototype helped me test the best way to present the information needed by a creator to determine whether or not their profile and audience would be a good fit for the opportunity.

FEATURES

Designing the Profile Value Calculator

The most common problem creators mentioned was that they didn’t know how much their social media profile was worth when negotiating their compensation with businesses. To address this pain point, Notam gives creators an estimated rate they should charge based on the specified social media platform, type of content, and their profile’s performance. metrics. Creators have access to how the rates are calculated to help them understand how to increase their profile’s value.

Designing the “Job Board”

Majority of creators I conducted research on get brand deal opportunities by cold call DMing via a generic email address or the business’ social media profile. The method isn’t very effective and leaves creators frustrated because they have no idea what they’re cold call applying for in the first place. Notam’s search feature allows creators to find brand deal opportunities that fit their preferences and offers an extensive amount of information on the opportunity prior to even applying.

Designing the Performance Metrics Page

Creators complained that in-app data metrics weren’t reliable because platforms like Instagram are always changing its algorithm. If the creator is intrigued and wants to take an objective approach when analyzing their content’s performance, the Performance Metrics feature allows them to do so. Notam gives creators full access to breaking down their profile’s performance based on the specified platform, date range, and campaign.

BRANDING

CONCLUSION

Looking Ahead

To take this redesign project to the next level, I plan on doing the following things -

1. Wireframe and design the desktop version of Notam.

2. Continue to conduct research on engagement metrics by social media platform. Many of my users want to make decisions based on data and I think it’s important to hone in on each specific platform when telling a story.

Takeaways

Reaching out to over 350+ creators helped prove that my initial assumptions and thoughts were wrong. Through intentional research and talking to creators, I found that not only was finding a brand deal difficult, but not knowing your profile’s value was worse.

This field and occupation is still relatively new and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to find a way to help creators grow their reach and increase their value efficiently. Like I mentioned earlier, according to Katie Sehl’s article (insert link to the word “article”) on Hootsuite, social media spending as a percent of marketing spend is expected to rise by 73% over the next 5 years. There’s a lot of opportunity to help creators chase their passions.