Support for amateur photographers to prepare their work for professional consideration
The user problem:
Members of our amateur creator community were increasingly being approached by business companies for professional work, which was exciting but also daunting for young creators with no experience.
The business opportunity:
With social feeds switching their focus to video/reels, an opportunity emerged for our image-based social platform to evolve the product offering to educate and support emerging pro photographers, making it easier for them to share their work with hiring managers and engage in professional/peer relationships.
Approach:
Competitive audits of creator hiring platforms to establish a baseline
Discovery interviews with amateur social creators on our platform who were interested in or had been approached for pro work
Discovery interviews with a range of company and business hiring managers who were open to using new talent, to understand where they were finding people now and what they were looking for
Generative prototype creation and testing with both roles to calibrate the end-to-end collaborative experience and understand potential legal/ financial barriers
Soft launch of the new talent platform, using quant measures driven by the rest of the work
Insights:
Emerging creators were flattered and excited about the idea of paid work, but most had no idea how to create an appropriate portfolio, how to be visible in the market, or what to charge and what to do on location.
Hiring managers liked the idea of hiring new talent, especially for local and company social shoots, but were frustrated with their lack of readiness, often having to coach the very people they were paying to do the work
Outcome:
This research drove the pilot launch of a new hub experience for hiring managers to browse and search for potential photography talent. New profile and portfolio templates were introduced on the creator side to ensure sound identity creation and surface details they would need to know for negotiation.