Product suggestions for improving Apna's community feed
A few simple product suggestions to improve user experience in the Groups section on the Apna app.
Note:- For better image clarity, I recommend reading this on a laptop or desktop. If using mobile phone, click on the images to view them clearly.
Introduction-
Apna is India's largest professional networking & job opportunities platform for the rising workforce. It is helping millions of blue- and gray-collar workers in India learn new skills and find jobs, and has become India’s fastest unicorn after raising $100 million in a round led by Tiger Global.
If you haven't seen the app yet, the image below provides a basic overview:-
While Apna is growing its marketplace at a lightning pace by adding new cities, employers and job seekers, and now has over 16 million users, I believe it is by unlocking the community play that Apna will really set itself apart from its peers.
While there can be a whole another article(or a book even) on why community is so important. I’ll just take the use case of job search. It’s commonly said that the majority of the job market is hidden. While the Apna Marketplace takes care of 25% of the job market, the majority of it is can be availed through the community part only. (image source)
Pain Point-
How often do you come across a post on WhatsApp/FB/Instagram/LinkedIn/other platforms that you find to be absolutely irrelevant to you, and likely out of place for the group/platform as well? Did it make you stop/reduce using that platform? Case in point - Facebook. (read - why Facebook is becoming increasingly abandoned and irrelevant)
At present, the groups and community interactions in Apna are just chaotic, to say the least. Imagine a WhatsApp group with 15 lakh+ members. No, please don't, and apologies for inducing such anxiety. Just take a look at the screenshots below to get an idea.
Content Relevance:- People use most social media apps just for entertainment purposes instead of looking for a particular kind of content, so an assorted infinite feed of anything and everything works well. In the case of professional networking websites, however, this may not be the case. Users usually have a specific goal(s) in mind while using such platforms, and there will be some type of content that they would prefer over the other. And so the goal here should be to make the user’s feed more relevant. (broadly speaking, Apna’s feed should be more like a sub-reddit’s feed than FB/IG’s feed)
While AI/ML can be used for content moderation & feed recommendation, in this article, I'll just stick to simple nudges and product improvement ideas that can be implemented to help partially solve this problem and improve user experience in groups on the Apna app. In the long run, more sophisticated AI/ML tech can be developed to improve on this.
User Personas-
As per my understanding, the typical users on the Apna app look like this:
Jyoti, 35, Female
Jyoti is a customer support manager in a company based in Indore. She wants to build her professional network, and she needs to urgently hire 10 customer support executives for her team. Her company’s HR has received thousands of applications on a job portal, most of which are not eligible for the role, making the process extremely time-consuming. She is looking for better platforms to help her find the candidates faster and also plans to actively reach out to qualifies job seekers.
Rahul, 21, Male
Rahul is pursuing his bachelor’s degree and is currently looking for a job as a delivery executive in Ujjain to finance his education. He also wants to take a job in finance after college and is using the Apna app to expand his knowledge and network in that field.
Akash, 28, Male
Akash is an experienced sales executive based in Bhopal. He wants to share his learnings with other sales professionals, build his professional network and get a higher paying job. He is open to relocating for a higher paying job to anywhere in M.P. or in the metro cities where he has friends or relatives.
Problem:- Most of content feed in the groups is irrelevant for the user.
Breaking down the problem into smaller segments.
A large portion of the content is either unprofessional or spam
Content is relevant but
User’s feed is not personalized
It's difficult to find a specific type of content that a user might be looking for
No consideration to the location
Now, let’s take a closer look at each segment individually:-
1. A large portion of the content is either unprofessional or spam
Why?
Users are unsure of what type of content to post and how to best use the groups.
Why?
No one told them
They see the existing posts and begin acting in the same manner
It's their first time on a professional networking platform- and they're probably unable to differentiate it from other large groups on WhatsApp or Telegram, that they may be a part of.
Potential Solution→
Suggest users about the best use cases for the groups
Asking users to tag their post under a category (such as need job, hiring, career development, knowledgeable, motivational, workplace story, others) while creating a new post
This should also make them rethink before (if) posting irrelevant content
For users whose posts have been reported multiple times in the last 1/2 weeks, add an additional notification while posting new content, describing the segregation among the above tags with examples.
Warn users on multiple offences & ban them from adding new posts for some duration (though they can still read and comment on other people’s posts)
2. Content is relevant, but- 1. User’s feed is not personalized 2. It's difficult to find a specific type of content that a user might be looking for 3. No consideration to the location
Potential solution→
Showing posts from relevant categories in the top of the feed, based on user preferences(can be asked while onboarding and be updated once in a while). For example- Job/Referral posts content should be prioritized in the feed for a user actively looking for a job.
There should be a filter that allows the user to choose the type of content that appears in his or her feed.
New users in the group should be shown top posts in the starting (which other users found useful/ higher #of claps). Also, notifications can be sent to the users to check out such posts later as well (this part is similar to LinkedIn). (For context- Like on FB == Clap, on Apna app)
Let users report a particular post if it is incorrectly labelled.
Excluding a few content categories, location should be taken into account while prioritizing feeds. It can include user’s current location as well as locations where the user is looking for a job or building a professional network. (Can be asked during onboarding and be a part of personal profile/card).
Location is crucial for blue-collar professionals. Location may not be as important for white-collar professionals as it is for blue-collar professionals, as longer travel and relocation are usually not possible due to the lower pay. While people do migrate to metro cities in search of work opportunities, they are highly biased towards some specific cities where they already know someone.
Rough Wireframes suggesting app changes to implement the above ideas
Current user flow for creating a new post→
Click Create a Post→ Option to select from a list of sample templates→ post
Suggested user flow for creating a new post→
Click Create a Post→ Select post content category→ Select location- list based on user location (for relevant for categories only)→ Option to select from a sample template→ post
Suggested user flow for Filtering Feed→
Click filter button→ Filter the relevant categories, locations and post authors (only connections, or everyone) —> Click Apply (Note that this process is optional)
Drawbacks & Conclusion
Given that the majority of users aren’t tech-savvy, adding 1-2 pages in between will almost certainly cause friction in the posting process and drop-offs in between the process. It’s a trade-off between ease of posting and relevance of content.
While the ease of posting content will lead to a large number of posts and high engagement in the short term, users will keep coming to the platform in the long run only if they find content that is relevant to them in their feed. Hence, I believe that relevant content will add more value to the user- by improving the user’s experience, and will help Apna in user retention in the long run.
Metrics that should improve and can be tracked-
Number of claps/number of posts scrolled
Time spent per session in a group
Please do share your thoughts or feedback in the comments section.
I can be reached at hitesh9876k@gmail.com or LinkedIn.