How would you improve usage of Facebook Groups? | Facebook PM Interview
How would you improve usage of Facebook Groups? | Facebook PM Interview
Product Improvement - Facebook Product Manager Interview Question: How would you improve usage of Facebook Groups?
Let’s get started with the solution (remember to follow the framework),
Step 1: Describe the Product
To start off in the right direction, you need to explain your understanding of the product – what does it do, who uses it, and how.
Facebook is a social media platform that mainly focuses on letting users share parts of their life using images, texts, videos, stay connected with friends and family, and to discover, share and express what’s matter to them. It has multiple elements like the messenger, marketplace, groups, games, jobs, stories, rooms but for today's discussion, we will focus only on Facebook Groups.
Facebook is majorly accessed from mobile app (Android, IOS), desktop web & app, etc.
Some of the major competitors of Facebook are Google, Sharechat, Telegram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, WeChat, TikTok etc.
Facebook Groups is one of the fundamental products of Facebook, aligned with the mission of providing people, tools to build communities and a vision of bringing people closer together. Beyond enhancing existing friendships, and providing stronger connections for families, Groups allow us to be a part of a bigger cause, entity, or a group. Which is a fundamental psychological need.
Group provides a unique solution to organize people in online communities based on the many facets we all have - our interests, locations, needs, habits, hobbies, religions, sports, music, etc.. and it allows us to exchange content and experiences in an efficient and simple way.
Groups is a rather matured product: it reached a product-market-fit with a clear value proposition and target audiences. It’s part of the core offerings of FB, and it is well exposed to all FB users, through different channels (events, searches, navigation,...)
The business goals for Groups, as a matured product would be engagement and/or monetization (vs acquisition, conversion, activation).
Now that we are clear on the product description and the interviewer is also onboarded.
Time to move on to the next step: Ask Clarifying Questions.
You: “Before we move on, I have a few clarifying questions I want to ask. Shall I proceed?”
Step 2: Ask clarifying questions to narrow the scope of the question
Q) What does it mean by improving FB groups? Do we want to improve
Creation of the page
Suggestion to the people to join FB group aka discovery of a group.
Search of an FB group.
UI/UX of FB group.
A) Upto you to decide.
Q) Are we focusing on any particular platform like desktop web or mobile app?
A) Let’s focus on Mobile App.Q) Do we want to improve FB group for a certain group? (group catering to markeplace? job search? celebrating events?
A) Facebook Groups in general.Q) What is the goal of improvement? Monetization, Engagement, Retention of the user?
A) It’s up to you. You are free to choose.Q) For the improvement are we focusing on a particular region or target group?
A) No, it’s up to you.
Step 3: Define the Goal you want to achieve.
Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.
I feel user engagement is something that aligns very closely with this mission of Facebook. Also, if we can increase the user engagement in Facebook Groups, it will also lead to an increase in user retention and possibly revenue for Facebook.
Mention your approach -
“Now that we have defined the goals for this problem, I will go ahead and list down the user segments for this product, followed by the pain points these users are facing, prioritizing them, and coming up with a prioritized list of solutions and metrics that we will track to identify its success.”
Step 4: List the User Segments and choose one segment to focus on.
Facebook Groups is used by a wide variety of user groups and across many geographies.
Two main user buckets, based on the basic functionality include:
Groups creators (admins)
Groups members (members)
Groups creators (admins) is comprised of two groups, based on their motivation:
Professional/Business Admins: to create and manage groups for brands, businesses, organizations, or for their own benefits.
Private/Individual Admin: to create and manage groups for certain causes, hobbies, interests, and the like. Without having a direct financial motive.
Groups members (members) can be segmented by the intensity of their memberships, for example:
Very Highly Engaged members (members in 21+ groups)
Highly Engaged members (members in 11-20 groups)
Casual members (members in 5-10 groups)
Low engaged members (members in 1-4 groups)
None-engaged members
Now, Select your user group and state your reason for the same. -
To improve Groups I’d like to select the user groups that would have the max impact on our business goal - Private/Individual Admin.
My assumptions are:
This user segment represents the largest number of admins in a very diversified manner; hence by empowering them the impact on engaging more people in more groups is higher
This user segment could be more vulnerable since its work is mostly voluntary and they need to keep their day-to-day job
This user segment will be more sensitive to the engagement of the members in order to keep investing time and effort.
I’m also assuming that if we will “take better care” of the admins, they will “take better care” of the members, so I’m good to focus only on them in this interview and propose a few solutions to their pain points.
Step 5: List down the user pain-points
Pain-Points of the Private/Individual Admin segment,