How would you improve Facebook Groups? How would you measure whether you were successful?

Clarify:

FB groups is the product where you can create, post, and discuss topics with a subset of facebook users together in a public or private forum. 

I understand FB groups well, because I'm an admin of a FB group of over 70k people! 

Structure:

So, I'd like to run through

- Mission of the product 

- User groups

- Pain Points /Needs

- Solutions

-Success Metrics

 

Mission: The mission of FB is to enable people to build community and bring the world closer together. 

Groups is a perfect example of that, as it allows people to find others with common interests and discuss specific topics. So it is directly in line with both the 1st and 2nd part of the FB mission. 

So overall the goal of FB groups is to build communities that help each other & discuss information.

 

User Groups:

Admins

       - Large groups

             - Personal Improvement (health/wealth/relationships)

             - Buy & sell

             - Local 

             - Passions

             - Entertainment 

             - Other

      - small groups

Members

Moderators

 

I'd like to focus on the admin side, because if we help them create impactful and successful groups, then the members will likely use them. I'd also like to focus on larger groups above 1000 users and that focus on personal improvement. This is because this is a growing areas and groups I think are the perfect way to help creators monetize this information. Also it will help get higher-quality content on the platform by providing a way for these creators/admins to make money. 

 

Pain Points:

- I want to make money from managing my group (HIGH)

- I want to grow my group (HIGH)

- I want to be the expert in my field (MEDIUM)

- I want to build a strong relationship with my group (MEDIUM)

 

I want to focus on pain point #1 for improving the feature as I think this is the highest priority for this type of user. If they start to make money they'll continue investing in the group and making it better.

 

Solutions:

- Create a subscription service where the user can charge for premium information (H / M)

- Create an email capture signup form to create an email list that the admin can market to (L / L)

- Create an ecommerce store within the group that can be promoted to group members (M / M)

- Create an affiliate-linked product catalogue that you can recommend the users and start generating a commision from their sales. (L / M)

Prioritized basesd on Impact / effort. I would choose option #1 as a subscription service would likely promote additional engagement from the admin and likely capture the most value.

 

Metrics:

I'd want to focus on the overall adoption of the subscription feature as it's brand new, and see how much it's being utilitzed:

- % of valid groups w/ subscription applied

- % groups w/ at least 1 paying subscriber

- subscription conversion % (subscribers / active members)

- subscription monthly churn rate

 

I'd prioritize the % of groups that had a successful subscription (at least 1 payer subscriber). 

Before rolling out I'd also want to see how this aligns with our mission of creating successful group and valuable communities but A/B testing the feature to see how group engagement differents (on average) for groups with and without the feature. Some things I'd measure would be:

- Posts per active group member

- Admin posts per active group

-# groups created

-Daily active group members.

 

 

 

Approach.

1. Understand the prompt better

2. Establish the goal

3. Identify user segments

4. Identify pain points/solutions

5. Prioritize pain points and solutions

6. Talk about success metrics

Get more context 

My understanding of the facebook group is that it is a community that users can create and add members to conduct group acitivies, discuss specific topics and seek help, among other.

Candidate: What is the platform that we are targeting for improvement a) desktop b) app c) both

Interviewer: Both

Candidate: Do we plan to roll-out the feature within US or Globally?

Interviewer: Globally

Candidate: Are we optimizing for the user engagement and satisfaction of the facebook users?

Interviewer: Yes

Goal:

Based on the follow up questions, we establish that the goal is to improve user engagement in terms of time spent, and user satisfaction.

User segments:

A) New users

B) Tenured users/Tech savvy one

C) Individuals

D) Businesses/NGOs

Since facebook adds million of new users each month but not all of them are familiar with facebook group feature, I would prioritze this group. 

Pain points:

A) Discoverability issue: Do not know about the facebook group feature

B) Difficult to find the relevant group that I am in interested in joining from the auto-suggestions

C) No differnetiation factor: Unable to differentiate between the groups that I can join immediately vs. those I cannot join immediately

D) Unable to track the usage of time on facebook: it makes it difficult to users to track their time on facebook and do self-regulation

E) Digital well being: Sometimes users experience negative emotions by browsing the posts on the group and still continue to engage with the group. 

Solution:

A) Discoverability issue: For new users that have joined any groups in first 30 days, facebook would show the pop-up screen at log-in about the groups

B) Personalization: Faceboook could use the social graph, bio-graphical details, employment details, location details, to recommend groups that users would be interested in 

C) Differentiator factor: Users shoud be able to see a flag on the thumbnail that tells whether users can join the group immediately or had to go through the approval process. If approval process is required, users need to be told about the expected wait time.

D) Dashboard: Facebook can create dashbaord and controls that empower users to track their time on the facebook groups and get a pre-defined alert/nudge 

E) Digital well being: Facebook can integrate with wearable devices such as apple watch and fitbit to measure the physiological responses that groups evoke in the users and identifty the posts that lead to negative physiological responses tied to negative emotions. Suppress recommendings groups and post in the future

Prioritization:

Discoverability issue: Requires just a UI changes based on simple rules so it is a low effort initiative; high impact in terms of adoption for groups

Personalization: It is key to improve the enjoyment, satifcation and thereby engagement for the users. Medium effort to build a personalization recommendation enginer and high impact interms of engagement

Differetiator factor: It is critical flag is self explanatory, otherwise it might create a cognitive load. Effort is low; impact is low because it is not certain that it will not create a cognitive load

Dashboard: high effort since it is brand new product; impact is high since Users can use it manage their time well on facebook and it would create long-term user engagement

Digitial well being: high effort, since it involves building new technology to integrate with third party harwardes; impact is high because this feature will go a long way to improve the user digital well being and satisfication 

KPI:

A) #users that are part of the groups

B) #users that participate in the group acitivity such as viewing posts, commenting, liking; #users that share the groups with friends

C) #users that engage with facebook groups each month; its trends; its drivers in terms of content type

D) #ad revenue associated with facebook groups and its trends; its drivers in terms of content type

 

 

 

 

 

It leads to social anxiety and depression among the users and long-term negative impact on the engagement 

 

Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community to bring the world closer together. Facebook Groups help bring the world closer together by strengthening our social fabric and bringing people together, forging closer friendships and civic ties. Groups can bypass users' own social graph and connect them with other kinds of communities. I'm going to focus on ways to increase group membership. I'll look at what kinds of users use or could potentially use Facebook Groups, those users' pain points and some solutions to solve those, and then go into the metrics by which I'd determine success.

Facebook Groups could be used by people seeking or responsive to:

1. Stage of life groups - new moms, women over 50, etc.

2. Local groups - groups for a specific region or neighborhood

3. Groups around a specific interest - fishing, writing, intermittent fasting

4. Small friend/family groups

5. Health condition groups - people living with a certain disease

6. College/work alumni groups

User pain points:

1. Stage of life group potential members - could benefit from such a group but may be too busy to find on their own (new moms) or would want to be invited by a trusted friend. User may not know these groups exist. They want to know the group is private as they will talk about personal issues.

2. Local groups potential members - would be good to be notified about local groups when user moves to a new area, a user needs to sell something locally, or needs neighborhood advice

3. Groups around a specific interest - a user is likely to search for these groups

4. Small friend/family groups - these groups are easy to join but hard to maintain. There is a limited number of such groups that can be created.

5. Health condition groups - are there enough people with your disease? Is the group shared info trustworthy? Is the info up-to-date?

6. College/work alumni groups - Users who don't feel connected to their former college or workplace may not join. 

I think there's a big potential upside in focusing on the stage of life group potential members. Stage of life groups are really helpful to navigate life changes. There's also a lot of possibility for targeted advertising/product offerings.

Some possible solutions to getting more people to join stage of life groups:

1. Use ML/AI including data from user profile/postings/likes to identify life stages. For example, did user click on diaper ad? Does user have interests or clothing choices that tend to correspond with being over 40? If life stage has been identified, recommend groups to users in their Newsfeed and highlighted on the Groups top page.

2. Encourage existing group members to invite their friends. Provide incentives to do so. Perhaps both parties get free diapers or clothing coupons if friends are invited within a certain timeframe.

3. Enhance and highlight privacy features of stage of life groups. New moms may discuss post-partum depression or different types of poop. Over 40 women may discuss topics such as divorce or wrinkles. Allow anonymous posts.

I think #2 and #3 above are good ideas, but I feel that #1 will give us the most progress towards our goal of increasing group membership. Friend invites are compelling, but a limited way for a large number of people to find out about a group. Privacy features are necessary, but not necessarily the key driving factor for new membership. So, I would focus on an ML engine that determine what stage of life a user is in. Age, tracked by birthday, would be an obvious data point; however some users lie about their birthday, so it would have to be weighed against other data points. I would look at existing most popular life stage groups and then develop data formulas that would help determine whether to recommend certain groups to a user.

We can measure the % of recommended life stage groups joined by a user, and whether those groups correspond with the assumed life stage based on our ML data. Also, we can compare the % of life stage groups compared to other groups that users who are recommended life stage groups join. Once a user joins a life stage group, I would measure their group engagement (posts, likes, shares, comments) to confirm this group is a good fit for that user. I would create a feedback loop that would measure whether recommended group=user joins group=user engaged in group, and would continue to monitor and tweak that flow to increase group membership and group engagement.

Joining a life stage group is a great opportunity to expand a user's social graph and bring them together with new users. Membership in a life stage group may also increase their time on site which equals more ad impressions. And, there are many opportunities to market to users in life stage groups - either by selling products, serving appropriate ads, and culling more useful, monetizable data about that demographic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Facebook groups is a forum where people with similar backgrounds and interests come together and interact with each other. They can also perform functions such as like, share posts, comment, share files/documents,pictures, videos. This feature is coherent with FB overarching goal of empowering people to build communities and bring the world closer together. 

 

Scope - What would you like to improve in FB groups?

• Are we focusing on specific group or type of group - No 

• Are we aiming to improve any specific metric such as engagement, retention, conversion, revenue potential, usage? - Lets say engagement 

• Are we focusing on the web version or mobile? - Lets say web

 

2. List the user types - In this context can be categorized as group members, group admins and group creators. Groups can be either secret or open. Lets assume group members in this case 

            User journey-

            New  User →  discovery of group (either by chance or referral only)

             Discovery by chance - The user discovers through feeds, or likes/recommendation of

              A friend

          Discovery by referral → user clicks on the referral link → requests permission -- waiting period -- > permission approved -- > user joins group

User comments/likes/shares files, vidoes, documents → log off → log back in a few hours → user searches for the previous document/photo shared → goes to timeline or the group profile →  scrolls/search → finds or does not find the relevant item → continues cycle 

 

User painpoints -

1. Discovery - As a user, I would like the option to turn on and turn off proactive recommendation of groups I may be interested in. For example, a school group that I would want to be a part of, if I move to a new location.

2. If user is a member of more than lets say 50 groups, I would like to be notified of groups I have been inactive in after x days, or trending comments from my own contacts.

3. The user would like to spend less time searching for posts from specific groups that might have interested them in the past.

4. User would like to opt for anonymous setting in certain groups.

5. User would like to provide feedback for a specific group

 

Prioritize painpoints - I will priotorize - (1), (2), (3)

 

List solutions - 

1. Introduce an option within ‘settings’ where the user can opt for proactive recommendation of groups in feeds.

2. In-app ‘intelligent’ notification of posts from groups that I have been inactive for x days.

3. Add a functionality to bookmark posts within a group or mark as favorite , that will increase user’s probability of revisiting and re-engaging in the group

4.  Allow the option of anonymous setting in certain group. 

5. Allow for qualitative feedback

 

Prioritize - 1,2,3

 

Success metrics -

1. Number of groups created 

2. # of daily active usage 

3. # of likes comments shares

4. Dwell time on each group

 

1. What is the objective of a fb group ?

It is a platform for like minded individuals who share a common purpose or platform for people with common objective to meet.

If we breakdown down this objective, we can consider four broad themes which groups try to fulfil -

a. get tasks done : like find a roommate, carpool options in orange county etc)

b. share info :  like group of CERN researchers debating/sharing findings, q&a among group members

c. promote commerce

d. promote networking

2. What does the current fb group product do?

It broadcasts posts of each member to everyone else, with the now popular tools of likes, comments, share fostering conversation among groups members on these posts.

3. Where can it improve?

If we look at objectives, groups in current form does the jobs (b) and (d) to a large extent, but there is significant scope for improvement for (a) and (c).

To make group achieve an intended task like finding a roommate or a buying of second hand items, the group should allow to follow through rest of the stuff that happens outside fb's purview like contacting the person, scheduling a visit, discussion of price, payment etc.

Now every group may have its own needs. For eg: group to find a roommate may not need the payment part, but the marketplace for second hand goods may need it. So the feature I am proposing is plug and play module which every group admin can choose depending on the purpose of the group.

The following modules can be thought of -

1. Contacting a person, discussion of price - fb group already has messenger for this use case

2. Scheduling a visit - calendar block can be integrated with messenger

3. payment - auction model can be built and integrated into messenger, for facilitating payment fb can introduce escrow service for holding payments until service delivery.

Metrics:

1. Group Admins who use these additional customization for expanding their services

2. DAU of users who use each of the tasks

3. successful transactions/ engagement of each of these extended use-cases.