Design a feature for Youtube to increase engagement (specifically repeat visits) for sports/fitness enthusiasts.

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Design a feature for Youtube to increase engagement (specifically repeat visits) for sports/fitness enthusiasts.

Asked at Google over a year ago

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Chetan Channa · Answer 1 · 2020-01-13T14:43:28+0000

Let's ask clarifying questions

Are we targeting any specific country? We will start with the US first
Within sports/fitness enthusiasts, are we targeting only the enthusiasts (people who just like watching and following) or the players(people who actually play & for eg go to the gym)? We want to target both
Are we looking at a specific age group? We want to target all age groups.
Is the main goal increasing repeat visits only or other engagement metrics like the number of videos watched? The main goal is to increase repeat visits but if other metrics are positively impacted, then it's good for us.
Are we targeting any platform like app, web, TV? We can target all of these.

Let's understand the scope

Youtube is an online streaming platform where users can see & upload videos that they like. We have to add features that will increase repeat visits from sports enthusiasts. We will first target US and we can add features for any platform. We can target all age groups.

The framework to evaluate

Since the goal is to increase retention, the most important factor for a platform like Youtube is to have good content. Unless there is good & interesting content geared towards our target segment, users will not come back even if we keep on adding features. So we will tackle this problem by :-

Listing down content that should be put on Youtube
Analysing user journey & adding features user segments

Looking at above, lets segment users for better analysis

Content Providers
Content Consumers
1. Watchers - Sports/Fitness Enthusiasts People who just watch
2. Players - Sports/Fitness Enthusiasts People who actually play

Let’s look at Content first which needs to be on platform for Content Consumers for both the sub-segments

Watchers	Players
Live Streaming of major events - Tie up with major event organises like EPL. Liga etc & get exclusive streaming rights if possible.	Live Streaming of major events - Tie up with major event organises like EPL. Liga etc & get exclusive streaming rights if possible.
Rights of great matches/games of past so as enthusiasts can watch again	Rights of great matches/games of past so as enthusiasts can watch again
	Training videos - Tie up with major academies, coaches & influencers. Ask them to put up their videos on the platform
	Authentic Product Reviews
Tie up with various teams & players for inside scoop, personal experiences etc	Tie up with various teams & players for inside scoop, personal experiences etc
	Nutrition related videos & researches.
	Especially for gym goers - Music playlists as well as pre-decided exercise schedules.

So we will first bring above content on the platform

Now let’s look at user journey for Content Consumers

Become Aware Of Relevant Content on Youtube -> Reach Youtube -> Login/register -> Discover/Search/Land on relevant content -> Watch Relevant Content->Again Search/Discover Content -> Watch content -> Leave Youtube->Come back again

Since this is a funnel, improving conversion rates across any of the steps above would actually increase the number of users reaching the last step (which is repeat visits). Now we will evaluate features for each step for the two segments we discussed which are

Funnel Step	Watchers	Players	Impact	Complexity
Become Aware Of Relevant Content on Youtube	TV ad especially during live event forecast Ads with QR codes on sports pages in news-paper Increase reach on TV by increasing awareness of TV app Tie-ups with TV manufacturers for pre-load of Youtube app	TV ad especially during live event forecast Ads with QR codes on sports pages in news-paper Increase reach on TV by increasing awareness of TV app Tie-ups with TV manufacturers for pre-load of Youtube app	High/Offline	High/Offline
Become Aware Of Relevant Content on Youtube		Tie up with gyms & sport academies(schools) to keep playing relevant/training videos on youtube within the premises so as the players become aware.	High/Offline	High/Offline
Reach Youtube(make it easier)	SEO & PWA capabilities like add to home screen	SEO & PWA capabilities like add to home screen	Medium	Low
Reach Youtube(make it easier)	Tie-ups with TV manufacturers for pre-load of Youtube app	Tie-ups with TV manufacturers for pre-load of Youtube app	Medium/Offline	Medium/Offline
Login/Register	For new users, ask user preference of sports as well as if he/she likes to play as well or just watch	For new users, ask user preference of sports as well as if he/she likes to play as well or just watch	Medium	Low
Discover/Search/Land on relevant content	Detect using past video view history	Detect using past video view history	Medium	Medium
Discover/Search/Land on relevant content	Ability to customise homepage with a UI/UX geared towards sport	Ability to customise homepage with a UI/UX geared towards sport	Medium	Medium
Discover/Search/Land on relevant content	Already present: Relevant recommendations, favourites, create playlists etc	Already present: Relevant recommendations, favourites, create playlists etc	N/A	N/A
Discover/Search/Land on relevant content	Ability to follow teams and players apart from just channels	Ability to follow teams and players apart from just channels	High	High
Come back again	Curated list of weekly/monthly relevant updates as push notification or an email	Curated list of weekly/monthly relevant updates as push notification or an email	Medium	Low
Come back again	Push notifications & reminders for upcoming relevant events/updates/videos	Push notifications & reminders for upcoming relevant events/updates/videos	Medium	Low
Come back again	Gamify repeat visits via points, badges & rewards. For eg if a user reaches certain number of points he or she gets to see a match live.	Gamify repeat visits via points, badges & rewards. For eg if a user reaches certain number of points he or she gets to see a match live.	High	High

According to the feature list above, I will start doing the offline tie-up basis after doing research on what is the easily achievable high impact partnerships.After that, I will do low effort medium impact activities. After that I will do a RICE based prioritisation of other features. But I believe ability to follow players & teams along with gamification will create the highest impact.

Features for Content Providers

We are not complete yet as we content creators are other user segment which we need to engage so as they put relevant content on the platform. If I understand correctly, right now the content providers earn by the advertisements shown but we can add following features for them.

Feature	Impact	Complexity
Rewards, points & badges for uploading relevant videos. Reward users on frequency of updates as well as quality of content.	High	High
Suggest providers with videos which are likely to get attention basis search trends & other data from platform	Medium	Medium
Monetary rewards on reaching a certain number of followers & videos	Medium	Low

Recommendation

As discussed above, I will first try to bring more relevant content on the platform by doing relevant partnerships. I would then do features for both content providers & well as consumers.

Ritu Biala · Answer 2 · 2021-05-15T22:52:50+0000

Step 1: Describe the product

Youtube is a video streaming service that provides video streaming content around a variety of subject matter.

What does it do? Provide video content
Who uses it? Huge customer segment but we're looking at fitness/sports enthusiasts
How do they use it? User lands on youtube.com --> log into account --> Search using keywords --> See a list of search results --> Pick video to watch and watch the video --> X out of the journey once video is completed or search for other video content.

Step 2: Clarify Scope of the problem.

Are we focusing on a specific platform for this - Desktop, TV, Mobile? Lets assume this is mobile app focused.
Are we focusing on a specific region for this? Lets assume the US and any English language based content.
Are we just looking at sports/fitness enthusiasts? Yes
Definition of sports/fitness enthusiasts - We'll delve into this subgrouping in Step 4.

Step 3: Choose a goal

The goal is already defined in the question - Increase engagement for content relevant to sports and fitness enthusiasts
Engagement can mean:
- Repeat visits (Preferred metric)
- Video views

Step 4: Identify Key User groups

Since these are enthusiasts already, I am making the assumption that they're

Sport/Fitness Enthusiasts

- Active
- Occasional - Target segment
- Casual

I am choosing occassional users as my target segment as I believe they are already watching some videos and have shown interest in this category. By increasing the relevancy of content presented and other changes we can expand this segment.

Note: User grouping could use more finese here. Would love feedback on this. One thing that tripped me off was becuase they are already "enthusiasts" would the frequency categorization work

Step 5: Use cases and pain points

User lands on youtube.com --> log into account --> Search using keywords --> See a list of search results --> Pick video to watch and watch the video --> X out of the journey once video is completed or search for other video content.

	Pain Point	Impact	Effort	Priority
a.	Customers may not be finding what they're looking for. For e.g. since search results are usually sorted by views, for something like fitness levels, it can be hard to guage what level is relevant for an instruction video.	H	H	Priortized
b.	Trouble finding video again - Customer may have viewed a video before but cannot recall which one it is	M	L	Priortized
c.	May realize half way through a video that the content is not relevant or applicable to them	M	M	Priortized
d.	For certain sports content, live versions may not be available.	H	H
f.	Certain applicable fitness or sports content might just be a teaser and leading users to a paid version off of Youtube	H	H

Step 6: Solutions to priortized pain points

Pain points	Possible Solutions
a.) and c.)	- Improve video metadata by improving video descriptions. - Community ranking categories on videos other than likes/dislikes for e.g. Fitness level difficulty, Sports analysis - Using an opt in survey at the end of a video to collect data and understand if the presented video was helpful or relevant. Use this data to improve the algorithm to present personalized recommendations
b.)	- Implement favorites and playlists (this already exists) - Enhance it 1 step further by letting users add descriptions to watched videos (notes, tags). This also helps bolster search params from Step a.) - Feature previously watched videos and contextual video recs based on what was watched previously to encourage repeat views - Create gamification to reward watching videos - for e.g. earn badges when you have completed watching a workout video per day for 10 days (10 day challenge)

Step 7: Evaluate the solutions

Community Ranking and feedback surveys
Customizable video descriptions and tagging
Algorithmic reccos (Long term, not priortized for now)

Step 8: Metrics for measuring performance

Repeat views
All Time video views
Monthly video views
Viewer data driven metadata clicks

Step 9: Summary

Our goal is to increase engagement for sports and fitness enthusiasts on Youtube. I focused on the the occasional user group and walked through their pain points and priortized the following: content relevancy and recall. Based on this I am proposing a community based ranking system for fitness/sports content using surveys. We'll track this mainly by repeat views but also track other metrics to measure the effectiveness of these changes.