Social Loopz Mobile Application

A Social Media Manager and Scheduler for the Average User

Londone Watts - Austin White - Kayla Jeter - Roberto Hernandez-Ramirez

June 1, 2022

Executive Summary

Nowadays, people use social media as a tool for massive self promotion and large-scale advertising. As technology advances, platforms are dying out as new ones rise to popularity. Most users typically have 1-3 different platforms they frequent regularly. Having to interchange between multiple apps in order to manage accounts can be very tedious and keeps users idle on their phones for longer periods of time. Social Loopz eliminates these drawbacks by providing a convenient one-stop-shop application to manage and interact with multiple social media platforms in one place. Not only can you access your feeds, but you can also choose to post immediately or schedule posts for future release. Additionally, this app will manage a contact list for you that will hold a person’s contact information and their known social media alias’. Our application will not only cut down on screen time but empower users to take further control over their social media presence.

What will separate Social Loopz from competitors is our simple and user-friendly interface, our constantly updated “Top Trends” feed, and the contacts list. Unlike competitions Hootsuite and Buffer, Social Loopz will focus on maintaining a clutter free and simple UI so that users are not overwhelmed. Also, this app is being developed with convenience in mind, which is why it is a mobile application. Hootsuite focuses on monitoring, scheduling, and analytics. The average person has no need for extensive features such as analytics and would see no point paying for that service. Buffer also has a limit on the amount of account you can connect before having to pay, but when you pay you are also paying for team collaboration and analytic features which our users have no need for. A majority of people are not “tech savvy” and want simplicity and convenience in their apps, which is what we strive to provide.

Figma files: https://www.figma.com/file/6uIDt7X8hO23E5xXwjOpmo/Social-Loopz-Draft

MVP Features List

All-In-One Managing
- Includes a list of top trending posts and the user’s personal social media feeds divided by platform. Instead of having a pop-up of each individual post to interact with users can interact directly from the displayed feed and toggle between seeing a mix of all feeds or specific feeds divided by platform.
- Users will ‌connect multiple social media accounts and view all their feeds from one screen rather than having to interchange between multiple platforms
- Users will ‌like and/or comment on post
Content Scheduling
- Users will ‌post to their chosen platform(s) immediately or schedule release for later
- Users can create a new post and specify a heading, text, attached media, the time of release, and select which platforms to post to
  - Includes a feature to view a preview of post
- This app will also create a list of user scheduled posts, which they can use to edit entries.
Post Preview
- Social Loopz content creators after crafting their posts can view what the content will look like before they post it onto their feed.
Universal Contacts List
- Users will ‌maintain a contacts list of all known contacts on their local device and across their social media platforms
- Users can search for contacts, view their own contact information, and change or delete contacts
  - This app will store a contact's phone number, email, and a list of linked social media accounts
Create Personal Account
- Users can use their personal email, first and last name, create a password, and add their date of birth. Once these are filled on sign up a user can create their personalized Social Loopz Account.
  - Password Requirements: Minimum 8 Characters, at least one uppercase, lower and special character. If these requirements are not met the user will be alerted that their password is weak.
  - Re-Enter password ensures that users are using a password they remember and that they did not make any typos when typing it in the first field.
  - Email must be a valid email and in a valid email format.
Upload Photo (Posting & Profile)
- Users can post custom content by selecting to add media to their post by either uploading a photo from their phone or taking a photo with their camera.
- When selecting a profile photo, users can select, edit, and upload a photo from their phone or use their camera.
Auto Sign-In
- Once a user has signed in once and closes the app without signing out upon entering the app again, they will be automatically signed in and navigated to the Loopz user home page. To stop this, a user simply needs to sign out before exiting the app.
Additional
- Digital Well Being notification: allows user to set‌ an alarm so they are not on the app too long
  - Promotes healthier screen consumption

MVP Features Cutbacks

2FA
- Within the Social Loopz application, we were planning on implementing 2-factor authentication for signing in and signing up for the application. However, due to time constraints and other project priorities, we had to delay this feature until after our MVP.
Top Trends
- In the user home, we were planning on displaying top trending posts across platforms as the landing for the Loopz section. Because of the time constraint, we could not have this implemented before the MVP deadline.
Contacts
- Users were previously going to have ‌their friends be contacts ‌ they could add a message through Social Loopz. This was a feature that had to be put off until after the MVP deadline.
Digital Wellbeing/Notifications
- A key feature we wanted to include was a digital well-being reminder for users to plan out how long they wanted to use Social Loopz. We did not complete this feature because of complexity and time constraint.
LinkedIn, Instagram
- Originally, we wanted to include 5 or 6 different social media sites so that users can access everything in one spot. Unfortunately, because of difficulty and time limitations we had to cut the list short to meet the deadline.
Facebook interaction
- The Facebook social media feed was implemented into Social Loopz and can be seen on the user's home page. However, users can not interact with their Facebook content. Currently, Meta is requiring all who want to interact with the Facebook API beyond viewing content to apply for access and have a valid business license.
Accessibility/Accent Color
- There were three options in accessibility we wanted users to have access to: Reduced Motion, Visibility Enhancements and Flash Notifications. These tasks were on the lower end of the list for MVP and as the deadline approached we ran out of time to complete them.
- Accent Color or Theme Color would have replaced the iconic Social Loopz pink with a color of the user’s choice. This feature was also given a low priority and had to be cut.

For the full Final Report visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IDcPafz7r4hQBwDBJgapSix-_BNTUeNnytmnGApqMJw/edit?usp=sharing