Local Socials | Devpost

Local Socials aims to address how to build and strengthen communities virtually
The WIN Approach/Model for Local Socials
Survey Results addressing Social Isolation due to COVID-19
Local Businesses Host 'Local Social' through Facebook Live
Local Businesses can select which nonprofits participants can donate too
Local Socials are posted to the Local Business's Facebook page for participants to sign up, pay, or donate
Facebook users can view Local Socials they have signed up for on Facebook Watch

Inspiration

One friend has been streaming her dance lessons from her living room via Zoom, and using Venmo to collect payments while her business is closed. What if there was a way to publish these lessons and have other people in the community join? Would she be able to maintain her income and keep more people entertained? Will it support people stuck in their homes? Would she even find more clientele if the people tuning in were local? Why isn't there a way to do this? We surveyed (found at https://forms.gle/7hUgFDtFC4PmaJsEA) asking them how they are dealing with social isolation. Based on their feedback, we thought why not leverage our existing technologies social media platforms to build an ecosystem for businesses to connect with individuals virtually!

What it does

Local Social leverages existing platforms, such as Facebook, with social streaming capabilities to enable businesses to schedule and stream services called 'Local Socials' with the option to collect payment or donate to nonprofits/charities. Social Media users can view and book the available sessions called 'Local Socials' through the Facebook profile of a business or through Facebook Watch.

Benefits for Businesses

Enable small businesses to have an additional channel of income
Build customer base and following
Select payment options such as fixed price or donation to nonprofits (these are tax deductible)

Benefits for Local Social Participants

Ability to learn new activities virtually
If 'Local Socials' are donation based, the participants can utilize these as tax deductions

How we built it

Axure and HTML/CSS

Challenges we ran into

Building the features around existing social media platform Facebook Getting feedback from Twitch, Instagram, and Facebook on which platform to select for the Proof of Concept