Challenge
Flipagram was a content utility application that incorporated licensed music and user generated content. As part of the Carnegie Mellon Heinz School of Public Policy, I was a member of a 4-person capstone project team that conducted a seven-month research study and recommendation report for the Master of Entertainment Industry Management program.
They needed help pivoting from a familiar utility to a content platform that retained a healthy user base. Our job was to investigate and see if Flipagram's conclusions about music, storytelling, and user retention were true and make recommendations towards their gosl of becoming an established social media platfrom.
Process
Our team started by testing the app for ourselves and noting areas of the UX that could be improved. We then turned to a Google survey where we asked questions to help us determine Flipagram's position in the marketplace. We conducted small user testing groups with participants of various demographics and had access to their user testing data to compare.
Outcome
The results we uncovered were interesting. The product differentiator was licensed music, which could easily be copied by bigger platforms. The issue was not awareness of the Flipagram application, but maintaining engagement. The survey results pointed toward a lack of product adoption 80% of the time when it came to new users.
The data gave us insight into adoption rates among key demographics. It would be an uphill battle to attract enough traffic to make Flipagram sustainable as a social media destination. Music gave them leverage in the short term, but there needed to be more to their secret sauce in order to gain a growing audience that engaged with the app regularly.
Our recommendation was to shift from building a platform and instead focus on their value to another company and consider selling. The brand recognition of Flipagram wasn't unique enough to stand alone, but they did end up being aquired by Tuotio (ByteDance) in 2017 and was implemented with Muisc.ly as a feature to become TikTok.
