MallorcaMagic, turning social reach into a property platform

MallorcaMagic sits somewhere between a property portal and a lifestyle magazine. It has more than 1.5 million followers across social media, and it uses that reach to promote homes for sale in Mallorca.

My job was to design a new website for it. Buyers needed an easy way to discover properties, agents and owners needed a way to promote their listings, and the lifestyle content needed room to inspire people abroad to invest on the island.

The problem

MallorcaMagic was already a trusted name for Mallorca property, with a huge following. The website was the weak link. People arrived from Instagram full of interest and landed on an experience that didn’t live up to the brand.

The challenge

The new platform had to work for several groups at once: buyers, agents, owners and even content creators. Each of them wanted something different, and none of them should feel buried under features meant for someone else.

The platform also had to bring MallorcaMagic’s social promotion into a proper marketplace. In short, we had to take a brand built on inspiration and turn it into a product where people could actually do something.

Research

I used a mix of market analysis, audience observation and competitive benchmarking. We couldn’t run many one-to-one interviews with agents, so I leaned on industry reports about the Mallorca market, studied how people behaved across MallorcaMagic’s Instagram, and looked closely at the big property platforms.

• Market analysis

  Industry reports

  Reports on the Mallorca property market helped me understand demand, prices and who the international buyers were.

• Audience observation

  Instagram behaviour

  I watched how MallorcaMagic’s followers reacted to lifestyle posts compared with property posts.

• Benchmarking

  The big portals

  I studied how the leading platforms handle search, trust and the quality of their listings.

  IdealistaRightmoveInternational portals

Who we designed for

These insights became two personas that guided the design. Isabel is a busy lawyer moving to Mallorca with her family, searching remotely for a rental near good schools. Thomas is a retired executive looking for his dream home, who needs reliable listings, good photos and agents who reply quickly.

First ideas

When I started, the project was at a very early stage. I did my first explorations in Adobe XD, roughing out the listing pages, the homepage and how buyers, owners and agents might each move through the site.

XD was great for quick flows and clickable prototypes. But as the project grew, we needed a tool built for collaboration and constant iteration, so I moved everything to Figma. That change mattered more than I expected. In Figma I could work in a much more systematic way, building reusable components, refining the design system and keeping every flow consistent.

How the platform grew

The first phase wasn’t about starting over. MallorcaMagic already had a working website, but it looked dated and lacked the polish you’d expect from a platform selling luxury homes to an international audience. So I started with the visual language: better typography, cleaner layouts and more generous imagery, so the site felt trustworthy and refined straight away.

With the foundations in place, I moved on to usability. I reworked the navigation so buyers could browse, save and enquire without friction, and I simplified the agent side so uploading a property no longer felt like a chore.

Then we started adding new features. The biggest was a set of promotion tools that let agents push listings directly into MallorcaMagic’s Instagram and social channels. It put the brand’s greatest asset, more than 1.5 million followers, to work for agents, and gave them a reason to list here rather than on any ordinary portal.

The next big step was AI-powered search and recommendations. With hundreds of properties on the site, buyers needed a smarter way to find homes that suited them. AI search brought the right listings forward, cut down the effort and made browsing feel personal.

Step by step, a refreshed website grew into a modern property platform. It doesn’t just host listings. It promotes them, supports the agents behind them, and gives buyers a premium experience.

How we tested it

Agents, property owners and content creators all reviewed the prototypes along the way. Once the new site was live, we tracked visitors arriving from Instagram and compared how long they stayed against the old site.

The final product

In the end, MallorcaMagic does two jobs. For buyers, it’s a place to discover homes and the lifestyle around them. For agents, it’s a powerful way to promote their listings.

I kept the interface simple on purpose: clear filters, strong photography and plenty of space, so people comfortable with technology and more traditional clients could both find their way around easily. The product became the bridge between a social brand and a real marketplace, connecting attention with actual sales.

Results

• More browsing and enquiries

  People stayed longer and enquired more often than on the old website.

• Agents became independent

  They could manage and promote listings without relying on third-party platforms.

• A stronger brand

  MallorcaMagic’s social presence finally had a professional platform behind it.

What I learned

1. 01

   Balance, not compromise

   Buyers, agents, owners and creators all needed to feel like the platform was built for them. The trick was giving each group what it needed without watering down the product for everyone.

2. 02

   A social brand can become a product

   It works when the design builds on what the brand already does best. For MallorcaMagic, that was its audience.

3. 03

   Keep iterating

   The final platform only appeared after we tried several directions. One of the biggest lessons was that MallorcaMagic needed to stand on its own, not sit on the side of something else.

Looking back

This redesign showed me how design can connect media and commerce. By focusing on what real people needed, the work went beyond a visual refresh and became a product that helps agents, inspires buyers and makes the brand stronger.

It also confirmed something I believe about my own process: research should guide the decisions, and creative vision should shape how they come to life. A brand born on social media can grow into a thoughtful, human platform for buying a home.

We started by refining what was there, then polished it, added features and finally introduced AI search. Design kept growing alongside the users, the business and the technology. MallorcaMagic became more than a listings site. It works because it keeps listening and keeps adapting.