CASE DESCRIPTION:-

BinkedOut is a professional social media platform that focuses on the professional life of individuals by helping them connect with people in a professional capacity and giving them a chance to showcase their career achievements. It also has its own job postings page which helps users apply for jobs that companies post. The main goal of BinkedOut is to become a professional social media giant that is used for connecting professionally.

Considering its unique and non-personal objective, BinkedOut is a hit and people use it a lot. It has amassed tens of millions of users over 8 years and is now the biggest name in the professional social media scene. 

PROBLEM STATEMENT:-

Although the company is at the top of the professional social media game, its engagement rate is fairly low. Despite having all the popular social media features such as chatting, media upload, a dedicated section to small clips, and an influencer program, people simply aren’t spending enough time on the platform.

Despite its wide user base, people were not engaging with BinkedOut as frequently or intensely as they were doing with other popular non-professional social media platforms. Recent research showed that every individual spent a limited amount of time across all social media, indicating that screen time was fixed.

Therefore, the only choice BinkedOut had was to eat into the time of other social media platforms i.e. eat away at other players’ market share to grow itself. The research was conducted by conducting surveys and street interviews with students, who are the biggest users of non-professional social media today. You, as a Product Manager, have been hired to deal with it.

How will you do it?

Ready? Go.

PLAN:-

Introducing a version of the platform for custom-made for students. 

As seen in the research, students tend to have the most time on hand to spend on social media platforms. They are easily distracted and particularly attracted to short-format reels and influencer-based content.

However, BinkedOut cannot engage in comic or non-professional content since that would defeat its purpose of being a professional platform. Moreover, it cannot invite simple influencers who have gained such status by way of entertaining their audience.

However, BinkOut has a major benefit: Branding. Its existence as a professional platform boosts its credibility and can help students, who struggle with future goals and industry knowledge. Therefore, it can set up a version of its platform specifically for students.

IMPLEMENTATION:-

This version of the app will be catered to students who are too young to hold jobs but old enough to be planning their careers: 13 to 18. 

Its initial features:-

  • Easy creation of an account
  • Adding personal professional details
  • Creating posts which align with platform goals
  • Connecting with people
  • Viewing and interacting with posts from other accounts
  • Conducting searches based on keywords and hashtags
  • Creating discussion groups where students can share their knowledge

With these features, the company will be able to onboard students by monetizing their concerns about their careers. Its brand value as a top-notch professional platform, students would certainly be attracted.

Unlike other media platforms, that focus on entertainment, BinkedOut would be bringing in scholarly and entrepreneurial influencers, who have made a name by being at the top of their fields, the company will be able to grow interest in the platform, thereby bringing in more students. 

To drive growth in user base, the company can work on arranging educational contests similar to Olympiads which would promote interest while also serving as quality educational content. With aforementioned features alongside these additions, the company will certainly be able to attract students while opening the possibilities of 3 major business verticals:-

  • Internships: Unlike its current offering which is catered to professionals, both starting out and veterans, it can coordinate with companies to introduce internships which would be targeting students. Since students always search for good internships and companies always need competent interns which they can groom, BinkedOut can fill the gap by displaying these internships to interested students and recommending competent students based on contest results to companies.
  • Counselling: Students always need assistance when it comes to their careers since the existing education system does not guide them effectively and most career decisions in India are still made on the basis of hearsay. Thus, BinkedOut can hire career counsellors or form a partnership with a career counselling agency that can guide students.
  • Courses: The job markets are extremely volatile these days as staying relevant on a job is challenging. Moreover, students lack critical industry relevant skills that can get them ready for challenging roles. Thus, BinkedOut can either bring in its own professors, form a partnership with a big edtech company, or outsource the learning courses to a large enough third party that can boost BinkedOut’s offerings and brand value.

ASSESSMENT METRICS:-

  • Revenues: The increase in the number of premium accounts and uptick in the number of ads to check how the product positively impacted the company’s top line.
  • Referrals: The number of new users that signed up after either being referred by existing users or by joining in after reading popular reviews to check if positive reviews are impacting the user count.
  • Onboarding: Number of new users onboarded due to the rollout of such product and assessing the overall contribution of the product to the company’s total user count.
  • Engagement: Growth in the number of posts created, frequency of visits, time spent on the app, spike in engagement rate, and churn rate are key engagement metrics that can help a company determine how the company’s products are performing.

CONCLUSION:-

BinkedOut aims to improve engagement on its platform by students, the demographic that has the highest time on hand to spend on social media platforms. With the successful implementation of its student-centered platform, careful monitoring, and timely updates, BinkedOut will be able to grow by adequately utilizing the demographic it missed out on.

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[Disclaimer: This case study is entirely hypothetical and unrelated to real-world situations. It's designed for educational purposes to illustrate theoretical concepts and potential scenarios within a given context. Any similarities to actual events or individuals are purely coincidental.]