Cross collaborated with multiple teams to build and scale social platform integrations into our app to strengthen our talent's discovery and engagement
Integrating social platforms gives casting directors a full view of talent beyond headshots, by showing personality and creative style. For talent, it highlights their influence and helps them stand out. This makes the platform more competitive and aligned with today’s industry trends, where social presence impacts casting decisions.
Last year, we surveyed talent to better understand their needs and inform our product roadmap. The insights highlighted the most popular social platforms, leading us to start with Instagram as the top choice, before expanding further. This feature will be exclusive to Premium users, providing an opportunity to drive subscription growth.
Limited view
Headshots and resumes don’t capture personality, style, or audience reach. Casting directors need a fuller picture.
Inefficient workflow
Casting directors often search talent on Instagram/TikTok manually. Integration saves time by centralizing everything.
Shifting industry expectations
Social influence increasingly affects casting (for commercials/brand partnerships). Not integrating means ignoring an industry trend.
To ensure a seamless experience, my PM and I mapped out detailed user flows for the new social integration feature. These flows outlined how talent would connect their social accounts, how casting directors would discover and interact with that content, and where these touch points aligned within the existing platform. By visualizing the end-to-end journey, we were able to identify potential friction points early on, such as account authentication or profile visibility settings, and design clear paths to resolve them. This process not only clarified the user experience but also aligned the product and engineering teams around a shared vision for how the feature would function.
Conceptualization
We then outlined the core features required to bring the experience to life. We began with quick sketches, which allowed us to explore different directions and uncover potential edge cases that might have otherwise been missed. These sketches evolved into low-fidelity wireframes, giving us a clearer sense of structure and interaction.
At this stage, we partnered closely with internal stakeholders to validate assumptions, align on priorities, and confirm that the designs addressed both user needs and business goals before progressing to high-fidelity iterations.
Given the high visibility of the project, I took on a versatile role, working closely with the product and marketing teams to plan the go-to-market strategy. My design work for in-app messages and email campaigns helped drive engagement and contributed to a successful launch.
Conversion
Since we've launched, Instagram now has 25.5 links (~20% Premium adoption). YouTube has reached 3.8 links (~3% adoption). And TikTok with 2.1 links (~1.7% adoption) in just 2 weeks.
Adoption and Reach
Casting directors often search talent on Instagram/TikTok manually. Integration saves time by centralizing everything.
Satisfaction
Talent satisfaction with showcasing their social presence, especially after completing surveys for their needs.
Takeaways
Turning uncertainty into momentum
When this feature was first scoped, our plan was to launch on TikTok before YouTube, since survey results showed a higher concentration of users on TikTok. However, due to uncertainty around a potential TikTok ban at the time, we made the executive decision to prioritize YouTube to avoid delays. A key takeaway from this project was the importance of preparing to pivot when external legal factors are outside of our control.
Proof that user-centered design moves the needle
Seeing the success of this launch was incredibly rewarding. Beyond the impressive numbers, the most meaningful part was hearing the positive feedback from our talent. Since product roadmaps often prioritize business-driven initiatives over talent-requested features, it was gratifying to see this user-researched feature come to life—rolled out thoughtfully in three phases (IG → YouTube → TikTok).