Objective:
Develop a boosted instagram post to help drive traffic to Digital Karma's website. Digital Karma offers product evaluations and gives suggestions to help companies improve their customer's user experience. Goals of the ad are to increase followers, social engagement, and traffic to the Digital Karma website; and to generate email inquiries which lead to paying customers for product evaluations. (Academic project with real world usage)
Instagram Boosted Ad
Process
Problem: Digital Karma is looking for a lead gen ad in the form of a boosted social media post to drive traffic to their website for product evaluations. Goals are to increase followers, social engagement, traffic to the Digital Karma website, and to generate email inquiries which lead to paying customers for product evaluations.
Insight: Digital Karma has a social media presence across all major platforms, but it is not very active, with the most recent posts being seven months ago (or older). Of those posts, some have a more professional tone while others are more "meme" based.
Solution: Create a short video ad that is professional but humorous, playing into the funny vibe given by the meme posts. (Intended for Instagram but also versatile for possible use on other sites).
Research
Digital Karma frequently posts "UX-humor" memes help potential customers on social media get a better idea of what Digital Karma does and what the personality of
the company is all about.
the company is all about.
Instagram Screenshot & Posted Meme Examples
Moodboard
Bright colors & Cheeky humor: The moodboard shows examples of UX humor, tongue-in-cheek jokes about bad design, emotive faces, and bright colors
Sketch Ideas
I wanted to convey what a confused or frustrated user would look like. How often do we have to use a company's app or website to complete necessary tasks, but terrible UX causes the experience to take five times longer than it should? My goal was to harness that energy of frustration for the ad, but with a more cheerful vibe... We can help!
Storyboard
I devised a plan of using a hook (a series of frustrated users), a sell (we can help- here's how), and a resolution (a happy user). I wanted to use traditional "meme" font, clear branding, and small matching details such as arrows rather than list bullets to create a cohesive message that would fit into the company's existing instagram profile.
Instagram Post
The Ad was posted to Digital Karma's Instagram account on 5/23/23 at 10:00am, the second in a week long series of posted ads done by students. A morning weekday was chosen in order to maximize ad visibility
Instagram Post
Client Feedback
The feedback from the client was overwhelmingly positive. She commented that she liked the wav the post captured the emotions behind the necessity of UX design and appreciated that the logo was prominently displayed.
"This is freaking incredible! I love how you captured this, it's just really amazing, I love what you did here."
"Well done, I don't have any feedback for you honestly... cheers to you, you nailed it, I can't wait to post this!"
-Jill Dasilva, Founder & Head of UX Strategy
Post Metrics
In the 24 hour period after the ad was posted, there were 24 video views and 14 website sessions (up 56%). 1 new email subscription was triggered, but no new IG messages or emails came through.
While the metrics of the post did not show particularly high numbers of traffic to the site or massive interactions, the instagram account had not been recently active, with the last post being 8 months prior (on 8/2/22).
Even with relatively low numbers, there was still a significant increase of 56% in visits to the Digital Karma Website (14 visits), ten of them being new visitors. If even one or two of those visitors lead to new business, then the post would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Reflections
I had two major takeaways from this project. First, I learned how to deal with ambiguity from the client. The brief was to create an ad, with no specification on the platform, colors, copy, photos, or direction- other than to lead viewers to the product evaluations DK page. I had to research the company online and use those observations to direct my design choices. The feedback from the client was overwhelmingly positive.
The second takeaway from this project is that social media followings take a lot of time and investment to build. One or two posts, no matter how good or eye catching, will be unlikely to attract thousands of views and interactions if the post is just not reaching very many people. It would be interesting to see how this post would do if the DK IG account
already has a large and active base.
already has a large and active base.
