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Research Outline

Prepared for David K. | Delivered August 20, 2020

Student Productivity Influencers

Goals

Support marketing efforts for a productivity app by finding information on influencers in the productivity space with a minimum of 10,000 followers on a social channel (or who have received 10,000 downloads or views of their content).The primary audience of these influencers must be students, with faculty being secondary. The provided information should include a short biography, their audience size and/or downloads/views, a link to their platforms, and (if available) the cost of working with them.

Early Findings

  •  Thomas Frank has 1.98m subscribers on YouTube and 86,600 followers on Instagram. He creates videos about how to be more productivity, whether in school or out of it. Videos include note-taking, doing well on exams, and dealing with procrastination. He runs the website http://collegeinfogeek.com.
  •  Mariana's Study Corner has 563,000 subscribers on YouTube. Her videos focus on how to study effectively, how to improve routines, and reviews and updates of items that make college life easier.
  • Study with Jess has 424,000 subscribers on YouTube. It is run by Jessica Holsman, who wrote the bestselling book The High School Survival Guide.
  • Some other vloggers that may prove of interest are Jade Bowler, Varaidzo Kativhu, and Jack Edwards.
  • More detailed information can be found in the spreadsheet linked here.
  • In general, early research has found that here is no way to quantitatively determine whether followers are mostly students, as sites do not release users' ages. This means that any judgment on the demographics of an account's followers will be based on content. This is similar to the reference YouTube account provided of Ali Abdaal. There is no mention of a target on his bio and many of his videos are widely applicable- but as he talks about exams, at least some of his followers are likely students.
  • While the team was able to find vloggers focusing on productivity and that might appeal to students, many influencers writing on productivity might talk about systems (for example, the Bullet Journal method) without being aimed at a particular demographic. This represents a potential pool of influencers that may be interesting to talk to as well. On the other hand, for those accounts dedicated to productivity, like the ones mentioned above, this by default precludes them focusing on tech, startups, entrepreneurship, VC, etc. (although they may be mentioned in a few videos). These findings are reflected in the recommendations below.