There has been a drop in the number of Facebook groups created. Why?

Structure

I will make sure that I understand the group product and the process of creating a group and ask for clarification questions; I will explore the potential factors for the drop; I will ask for additional data and then provide one or a few hypotheses.

 The Product

Facebook’s mission is to make the world closer and make tools for building communities. Groups is one of the main features for communities to interact; therefore, drop-in group creations may be an emergency. In groups, group members can interact with each other (in some groups, the interactions are moderated by admins).

The users who create the groups are called admins; Any user can create a group.

Clarification Questions (responses)

1. Are we talking about the number of groups created or the number of users who create a group? (number of groups created)

2. Is the decrease in the number of clicks on “Create” or in successful group creations? (Clicks on Create; There is no change in % of completion)

3. During which period we experienced a drop? (In the last two weeks)

4. Did the drop occur suddenly (a day or a few days) or overtime? (a steady decrease of 20% on average for every day in the last two weeks)

5. Do we know when it started? (Between Sunday\Monday last week)

6. Are we experiencing a significant drop or increase in other features or generally WAU? (No)

7. Did we experience such a drop in the past? What were the reasons? (Vary) 

Factors

Internal Factors (responses)

1. Did we launch something? (No)

2. What A\B tests are currently running, were there any changes? (1- Changing the location of the marketplace in the left navigation. 2 - Making posts wider. 3 - Language on the terms of use page.)

3. Were there changes in privacy or policy (Yes an A\B test)

4. Were there changes in the way we track creation events (internal \ external)? (No)

5. Are we experiencing a relative decrease in engagement inside of groups? E.g., average posts\comments\reactions (No)

6. Did we change the button’s location, color, or anything around it, e.g., the background color, other items around it, something that might be more eye-catching? (Location)

External Factors (responses)

1. Did one of our competitors launched a feature or changed a policy? (No)

2. Were there any regulation changes? (No)

3. Is there some significant event (holiday, sports events, elections,..)? (A big storm on the east coast)

4. Was there something in social media or news? (The storm)

General Factors (responses)

• Is it worldwide or only a specific region? (US)

• Is it for the app or the web? (Desktop)

• Can we segment it with some other demographic dimension? (No)

• Can we segment it by devices or operating systems? (No)

Hypothesis 

1. The A\B test around the location of the Marketplace button could affect the clicks on the groups’ button – need to check the test groups size and correlation with the drop.

2. The storm may affect the creation of some kind of groups, for example: around a specific event, e.g., sports, live show, community,.. – need to check:

   1. if there is a drop in the creation of a particular type of groups

   2. Did we experience such a drop in previous storms?

Assumptions/confirm by asking questions to the interviewer:

1. This is a sudden drop. Assume the drop is also larger than noise. 
2. Groups is a mature and global feature, so I assume this is a drop is global and it is considered a 'drop' as steady state value is known
3. Is the drop localized to any particular group of users based on location, device,platform or OS? Assume all users
4. Are any other metrics also impacted? Assume no.