People Over Plastic
A UX research deep dive into People Over Plastic, an environmental justice news organization, into their target user base. The goal of this project was to learn how to connect with their target users, in order to expand engagement and impact.
Where
Phoenix, Arizona
Role
UX Researcher
What
Website
Category
News & Journalism, Environmental Justice,
Why
To investigate opportunities to grow followers, specifically Gen-Z Gulf South residents
When
Feb 2024 - April 2024
Project Overview
People Over Plastic (PoP) is a media platform for environmental justice. Their mission is to start inclusive and solutions-oriented dialogues that center environmental justice and power an anti-racist future.
In order to fulfill this mission, People Over Plastic crafts counter-narratives that emphasize key connections between the systems that propel environmental racism to connect, uplift, and amplify unheard voices—ultimately shifting power from extractors to justice. What sets PoP apart is their focus on the people and communities negatively impacted by environmental injustice, whom are often left out of the narrative.
People Over Plastic’s primary target audience is Gen Z BIPOC users, and their secondary target audience consists of users from The Gulf South
Research Objectives
1. I want to understand how to increase People Over Plastic’s growth rate, and what barriers prevent more users from engaging with their content and following them.
2. I want to identify what drives BIPOC Gen Z users to follow and engage with an organization or brand, and how People Over Plastic can attract more BIPOC Gen Z engagement.
3. I want to learn how People Over Plastic can build more connections with users and influencers in The Gulf South and Appalachian regions.
Hypothesis
In the current social media culture as well as the last few years of global crisis have made it difficult to catch and maintain new users’ attention spans, as well as lead to emotional fatigue. Feeling as if there is not much individuals to do to make a discernible impact, users opt instead to scroll past PeopLe Over Plastic’s content as it is mostly serious and not a positive escape from reality.
Research Methods
Growth Barriers
Competitor Analysis
To compare to PoP’s current strategy with environmental justice organizations
Content Analysis
To discern best practices in the environmental justice space
User Interviews
An exploration of user interests & preferences
User Survey
A quantitative analysis of user trends
Secondary Research
An investigation of behavior in the activist spaces
BIPOC Gen Z Users
User Interviews
Insight into how BIPOC Gen Z users understand environmental injustice, and in what capacity it exists in their everyday lives
Secondary Research
A glimpse into drivers for Gen Z engagement and retention
Gulf South & Appalachian Users
User Interviews
To provide context into the experience of PoP’s current and potential audience, and content creators in these regions
Secondary Research
An investigation of trends and user behavior in both regions
Contraints & Limitations
2
1
Insights from current People Over Plastic followers, how they found the organization, why they engage the way they do, and PoP’s impact on them would be very helpful to identify current strengths.
Amount of Analytics Data
With more comprehensive analytics data from more than just Instagram and TikTok, with a span greater than 3 weeks, we could have more definitively isolated key content areas and best practices.
3
Access to Super Users
Timeline
Due to the specificity of PoP’s target audience, Gen Z users in the Gulf South and Appalachian regions, more time to find and connect with their target demo would have been greatly useful.
Competitor Analysis
Next, I conducted a competitor analysis to evaluate People Over Plastic’s metrics and performance on Instagram in comparison with competitors in the space.
The four organizations chosen to compare with PoP were Future Earth Foundation, Earth Rise, Grist, and The Solutions Project, which were organizations suggested in the creative brief and/or the stakeholder interview. Since Instagram is the platform where PoP has the largest following, the most content, and is their current focus for their social media strategy, that was the platform chosen for the comparison. The parameters of this comparison were set for the last three months of activity for a more detailed picture of the organization’s activity, with a focus on performance and strategy in 2024.
Juxtaposed with these organizations, when looking at People Over Plastic’s Instagram performance from a metrics standpoint, considering their much smaller follower count at about 3,000 followers, they are performing well on the platform. Not far behind much larger organizations in the environmental activism space in terms of post count, tied for second place with their reel count, and trailing not far behind two organizations that have 16x and 9x the number of followers respectively, PoP is definitely connecting with users in a way that some of their fellow organizations are not. While PoP’s comment amount is not close to their competitors which all have much larger followings, they do outperform The Solutions Project in that respect. PoP was averaging 5.04 comments per post when compared to The Solutions Project which had a 3.57 comments per post average.
Taking a high level look at PoP’s Instagram metrics, their numbers are good for their following size. As a result of this analysis, the real question to explore would be: why there aren’t more followers in spite of their high engagement rate?
Content Analysis
Following the competitor analysis, I dove deeper into People Over Plastic and their competitor’s content to look for patterns as to which content performs well in the environmental justice space.
The first organization to be analyzed was Future Earth, the organization with the highest amount of followers. Their most popular content tends to be light hearted, and not attached to any particular movement or call to action. Thier most popular and third most popular posts are both meme based. The top post also includes a round up of feel good and thought provoking posts and pictures. The second most popular post is a celebration of a influential environmental activist.
