Purr Social Media Plan

What is Social Media? The beginning of a plan

Although, we already feel pretty confident with the popular social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram we decided to do some research with the aim to expand our knowledge on these sites, especially from a business perspective. 

So what is Social Media? 

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Web sites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking , social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media.

Social media is also often used for crowdsourcing. Customers can use social networking sites to offer ideas for future products or tweaks to current ones. In IT projects, crowdsourcing usually involves engaging and blending business and IT services from a mix of internal and external providers, sometimes with input from customers and/or the general public. In business, social media is used to market products, promote brands, connect with current customers and foster new business.

Here are some prominent examples of social media:

• Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos, and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. According to statistics from the Nielsen Group, Internet users within the United States spend more time on Facebook than any other website.
• Twitter is a free microblogging service that allows registered members to broadcast short posts called tweets. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users' tweets by using multiple platforms and devices.
• Google+ (pronounced Google plus) is Google's social networking project, designed to replicate the way people interact offline more closely than is the case in other social networking services. The project’s slogan is “Real-life sharing rethought for the web.”
• Wikipedia is a free, open content online encyclopaedia created through the collaborative effort of a community of users known as Wikipedians. Anyone registered on the site can create an article for publication; registration is not required to edit articles. Wikipedia was founded in January of 2001.
• LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.
• Reddit is a social news website and forum, where stories are socially curated and promoted by site members. The site is composed of hundreds of sub-communities, known as "subreddits." Each subreddit has a specific topic such as technology, politics or music. Reddit site members, also known as, "redditors," submit content which is then voted upon by other members. The goal is to send well-regarded stories to the top of the site's main thread page.
• Pinterest is a social curation website for sharing and categorising images found online. Pinterest requires brief descriptions but the main focus of the site is visual. Clicking on an image will take you to the original source, so, for example, if you click on a picture of a pair of shoes, you might be taken to a site where you can purchase them. An image of blueberry pancakes might take you to the recipe; a picture of a whimsical birdhouse might take you to the instructions.(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/social-media)

These are the most prominent social media accounts out there, they are all very different except they all appear to have one thing in common: creating an online community, where users create the content. 

Analyst, Brian Solis has created the following social media chart, known as the conversation prism, to categorize social sites and services into various types of social media. 

Click to enlarge

This conversation prism allows us to see if the Social media sites we're planning on focusing are relevant to the product and business. We're planning to focus our attention on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, which we agreed with the clients at our previous business meeting. 

In relation to the prism, Facebook falls under both a social network and Discussion and Forum site, this compliments the objectives of marketing and development as well as creating a brand identity. 

Twitter is a more of a social stream, creating a face-paced environment for people and businesses to share information with other users. Twitter allows audiences to scope services out in privacy, without any commitment. People will be more relaxed and can find out what you're about without the pressures of the hard sell. 

Instagram is a social media site focusing on pictures and short videos. It has become a popular platform to use for photo contests. Companies can easily ask users to use a particular hashtag for the contest by tagging their pictures and create a community of cat lovers, making our target market aware of our product. 

We discussed creating a YouTube account for the social media campaign, however, we all agreed that the amount of content we would need to manage and maintain a successful account would be very difficult at this stage. 

This research has helped us to realise just how important understanding social media is, especially as we are just beginning to get involved with social media from a business perspective. 

Filming: Reworked Script

This is the reworked script we completed on account of Steve changing his mind about the video. We've combined both Steve's ideas and our own, on account of knowing what the target audience wants.

A New Video Idea

Although Steve loved our original video idea, he informed us at a recent meeting that he wants to take it in a more simple direction and in hindsight we agree.

Despite our initial idea being entertaining, informative and similar to a short film. Steve, in his transformation of the product/business, is wanting to take the video in a more simplistic direction.

The idea: 

The Video will begin with the camera acting as a cat to create the illusion of a cats view, the 'cat' will explore an area for short while and then run over to Steve and leap into his arms. During this there will be a voice over, by the presenter, introducing the product and setting the scene for the rest of the video.

The shot will then change to Steve holding a cat, introducing himself and the cat and then placing the cat down and continuing on about the product. 

The video will then continue with shots of Steve speaking about aspects of the product along with overlays of the collar graphics and the app design.

The presenter will then do a V/O and on the last line the shot will change to Steve and the Presenter will walk in to join him and conclude the video. 

Although the video will be much simpler than planned, it will mean that we now have a sufficient amount of time to film and edit the video in time to meet our deadline. It also means that filming will be a lot more straight forward so we can focus more on the delivery of the lines and the aesthetics as opposed to worrying about all of the different shots that we would have needed for the previous video idea.

Despite initially feeling deflated that our video idea was not going to be taken forward, we are now extremely happy with the way things have worked out and are very pleased that Steve has decided to take the video in this simpler, yet more effective, direction.

Fab Spider: The App Designers

Since the project has been moving forward more swiftly than ever, we agreed that it was vital to get the App designed. After noting down a few ideas, we then discussed our designs and plans with Adam and Steve who seemed very taken aback with what we had to say.

We then came to a horrible realisation that Steve hadn't planned the App in enough detail and had not taken every aspect into account- which makes sense as he is not a designer. While this was very bad news and bad timing considering we don't have long left to complete the project, we have a good knowledge of apps and had, luckily, thought through how we imagined the app to appear. 

So this meant that the next step for us both was for us to plan and design the app and then take it to an app developer who would be creating stills of the app for the Indiegogo page. 

The meeting was with a company called Fab Spider who are a web design agency based in Halifax. On arrival, we were both extremely nervous as we did not know what to expect and were slightly dubious about whether or not our designs were achievable. Luckily Dom, the designer, was extremely welcoming and made us feel very comfortable.

Dom reviewing our App Designs

Adam leaving the Fab Spider HQ

We talked him through each page of app designs and roughly explained each aspect to him. This was actually very reassuring, as he understood everything we had in mind. We then discussed which pages we wanted to be made into stills for the Indigogo page, as there is no need to use all of them because we only need to demonstrate the important aspects of the app (because more detailed information about every aspect of the app will be written about in another section of the Indiegogo page.). 

After deciding to showcase the Map, Home Page, Profile page and Chat/messenger on the IndieGoGo page, we discussed how we wanted each of these designs to be presented and in which format.

We also discussed our Purr domain and email addresses, as they are also the company that is sorting these out, and exchanged contact information with Dom for future reference.

Considering this was our first experience with designing an app, Dom appeared to be very impressed with our plans and did not see that any changes needed to be made. We're so glad that everything is finally coming together and cannot wait to see the final outcome. 

Our App Designs

Since Steve elected that we should be in charge of App Design and after realising that his original app design was not quite up to scratch, we got to work on our own designing for a social media app. We opted to draw out each possible section and page of the app using good old pen and paper as opposed to using InDesign or another Design app.
We chose to do this as we felt that, when explaining the designs to Steve and Adam, we would have more opportunity to annotate and describe each aspect of the app so that they would understand our thought process and designs and ultimately jump onboard.
When we showed the designs to Steve, he was actually very impressed and I think the amount of effort we put into each one gave Steve and Adam confidence that we both believed in the product and had a good understanding of apps.

Here are the designs in chronological order:

App Research

Throughout this practical project we have definitely come to understand (more than ever) the importance of research. We realise that with research you can expand on knowledge on topics unfamiliar and also keep in mind the wants and needs of the target market.

Although we are both avid app users (like most 21 year olds with smart phones), we had never had the opportunity to design an app before, not to mention where we would even begin with it all.

We found this useful advice from Digital Agency, Certatim. Discussing 5 important things to consider when planning a mobile app. Which we are going to use as a guideline whilst designing the app:

1)What is/are the main commercial aim(s) of the app?

If you are a business, you need an app that is either a standalone product you can sell, a platform to promote your existing products or a way to generate mobile advertising revenue.

Revenue Stream: Apps that you sell directly to smartphone users are generally some of the best looking, innovative and frequently updated apps on the market.  They have to be addicting: either highly entertaining or extremely useful.  Since they act as standalone products that users pay for in advance, it is in your best interest to make sure that you spend the resources to give these users the kind of game/software they will spend a lot of time using be willing to share with others. Wondering what to charge per download?  The average mobile app is about $1.55 although your average iPhone gaming app is $.99 for your typical game app made for the iPhone device.  A marketing budget is also essential.  With nearly 1,000 apps entering the market per day, you will need a pretty big bull horn to get the attention of the punters.

Promotion Platform/POS: Apps that perform the role of promotional “platform” need to be simple and to the point yet convenient enough to keep your clients coming back for more. Apps in this category range from store loyalty apps to apps that allow clients to place actual orders directly from their devices.  The key to convenience lies in functionality.  As long as people feel that an app makes life easier, they keep using it.  So to hold onto your market share, keep these “platform” apps upgraded and make sure they are mapped well to as many devices as possible.

Advertising Space: When you hope to sell advertising space on your app you need to first gather a broad base of users.  In the future (by 2017 according to Strategy Analytics) the average app will cost only 8 cents, with most of them bei ng offered for free. Luckily for app owners, mobile ad technology is getting even better.  Many of the measuring and tracking and retargeting technologies used on the web are now being applied to smartphone usage.  In fact certain features such as push notifications allow you to send very targeted messages to users – even if they have turned your app off!  Of course this can be an alarming invasion of a user’s personal space, but if used tactfully can sometimes provide information that the user finds interesting or useful.

2)      How will different users experience my app?

Where are your users, are they male or female, what is their age and what devices are they most likely to have?  Based on the answers to these questions you may decide to create multilingual interfaces, different versions for iOS/ Android/mobile web, integrate with certain “niche” social networks like LinkedIn or Pinterest or wait until a critical mass is using your app and only charge a fee to the late adopters.  In some cases, different app versions can be rolled out to different user groups, if these versions are made at the same time, then the development costs can be much lower as they are likely to share some creative and functional elements.  For example, if you have a designer that has created the graphics and story boards for smartphone screens, ask her to make another version that can be rendered with optimal proportions for tablets.

3)      How does my main website compare in look, feel and functionality to my app(s)?

When it comes to the so-called native apps for iOS and Android, users still expect something much better than their current website.  However, many companies and organizations are asking us to provide “web apps” by which they mean a mobile friendly website that appears only when a smartphone or tab browser is detected.  This is best done as an adaptive website – one that detects the browser visiting your domain name and displays images, text and functionality based on the size of the users screen.  This means that your main website may have to be upgraded to include the modern features available in your mobile apps.  Although this might seem like a large undertaking, there are significant economies of scale in making a website that scales down adaptively to a small screen.  You will be feeding two birds with one bag of seeds: getting a new modern website and a new mobile application at the same time!

4)      How big (literally) will my app be?

Apps unlike websites don’t have the stringent size restrictions and you are able to pack in more high resolution images and functionality then you may consider using on your traditional website.  Given that the app is downloaded ahead of time and resides on your smartphone, you don’t have to worry about large data being passed through the internet.  Apps that accumulate stored data with each session can sometimes eat up a lot of storage so you do want to be kind and not bog down your users phones.  Remember that the typical iPhone or top-of-the-line Samsung ‘Droid device has between 16GB and 32GB. If your app is a behemoths, then consider making it smaller so as not to scare away some smartphone users from the initial download.

5)      How long do I want my app to remain relevant?

If there is one thing that 20 years of the Internet has taught us, it’s that users are fickle.  Devices, games, software and social networks continue to work long after they have lost popularity.  It is estimated that up to 75% of apps are inactive and may never be downloaded by anyone again. So the key is to make sure your app stays near the top of the pile.  While no one knows for sure what the market will be like in a year’s time, we can predict some things over the 4-6 months.  Next week, we will look at some trends we are likely to see in 2013.  Good developers like Certatim can give you the tools to upgrade your apps to keep them relevant long after others have become historical footnotes.

This article was very informative, we've sent it to Steve and Adam to look at as well, just so we're all clear on the basics of what to do/not to do when creating an app. 

However, a lot of the research focused on coding an app, rather than what to include in the design so we've based our designs around what people generally want from a social media app - Chat service, a place to share photos - including the use of Hashtags and Geotags, a Home Page which is basically self-sustaining by focusing on user-generated content, an option to searh for users, locations and hashtags so user's can widen their own community, and of course the map - that makes our app different from the rest - where users can easily track their cat.

We're going to draw up our app designs ahead of the next meeting with Adam and Steve. We aim to encompass as much detail as possible in the annotation of our designs - whilst keeping the drawings simplistic for the app designers to follow and improve upon. Steve and Adam have invited us to attend the meeting as we have more of an understanding of the design and small details that should go into the app. Attending the meetings will allow us to clearly inform the designers what we want from the app.