Role: Community Lead, Creator Community
Timeline: 2021-2022
Teammates: Product, User Research, Community Ops, Legal, Engineering, Support
Objective: Launch the Picsart Product Community, an online forum where Picsart Creators can connect with each other and shape Picsart’s roadmap.
Phase 1: Understanding the Current State
Why: Before any implementation, it’s important to understand the current state so that we can identify gaps, areas of opportunity, and most importantly, what community mechanisms to implement for this launch.
Method: I met with 10+ teams across product, user research, support, and community to understand how user feedback is currently being funneled to internal teams.
Key Findings:
There currently is no formal processes for feedback and feature requests to be funneled to product teams
Product and user research were currently conducting research with only first-time Picsart users (eg through user testing platforms)
Support was currently gathering feedback and feature requests, but had no formal process for communicating it across the product org
Picsart currently had a small community of super users called their Masters Community that was not fully leveraged for user insights
Phase 2: Creating Interim Solutions
Why: Based off of the key takeaways, I identified that there’s an opportunity to provide a monthly snapshot of the top feedback and feature requests gathered from the Support and Community. We could use this interim solution for the time being while the Product Community is being created, so that product teams don’t have to wait for user feedback.
A second solution that we could implement is giving User Research access to our Masters Community so that they can conduct research with them.
Method: For the first interim solution, I collaborated with Support and Community to create a monthly report. This report would serve as a test to set up a soft feedback loop between Product and Community. By gathering the top tickets from Support and the most popular posts from Community, the monthly report would show a snapshot of the top bugs, feedback, and feature requests for our 4 key business units.
The second interim solution would be a research request form that User Researchers and Product teams could fill out if they wanted to conduct research with our Masters Community. This would also serve as a test to set up a formal process for requesting research between Product/User research and Community.
Key Findings:
Interim Solution 1 - Monthly Report
The report was a digestible, asynchronous way for teams across all BUs to get a monthly glimpse into user feedback
Including sentiment, user quotes, and screenshots proved to be the most effective way to humanize users and spark action from product owners
Including trends over time also was effective in sparking action across teams
Product teams often hungered for more information and a deeper relationship with users
Interim Solution 2 - Research Requests
The research request form proved to be an efficient way for researchers and PMs to get access to the community
The research request form proved to be a viable barrier so that community managers can continue to protect community members from endless hounding from internal team members, while still giving internal teams enough access to the community
Results:
Interim Solution 1 - Monthly Report
After 1 year, 18+ product features have been built and explored, 1 of which being the 3rd highest source of revenue in 1 of the 4 business units.
Interim Solution 2 - Research Requests
4+ major research initiatives were conducted with the Masters Community, which involved moderated interviews, surveys, and prototype testing. Some of the features from the research studies are currently live in the app.
Phase 3: Gathering Requirements
Why: Before starting any implementation, it’s crucial to gather requirements from stakeholders and understanding what desired outcome they want to achieve.
Method: I met with 10+ product, user research, support, and community teams and uncovered their desired outcomes.
Key Findings:
The Business
The business wants to create a feedback loop between Creators and product teams so that their roadmaps can be shaped by Creator feedback and requests.
Product & User Research
Product and user research teams need visibility into user feedback/requests
Product and user research teams need a way to organize and track user feedback/requests
User research needed a way to conduct research with Picsart Creators, such as longitudinal studies, surveys, and moderated interviews
Support
Community needed a way to send inquiries involving PII or subscription information with Support so that it can be handled privately
Community
Community needed a way of sharing progress updates from product teams back with users
Community needs a way to foster a healthy community where Creators can connect with each other, find peer support, and feel like they are contributing to the future of Picsart
Phase 4: Creating A Product Feedback Loop
Why: While implementing the architecture for the Product Community (see Phase 5), I worked to create a feedback loop that worked with product and user research’s current processes that also protected community members. (A large risk is internal teams speaking with community members and overpromising them features that will not be executed.)
Method: I collaborated with Product and User Research to create 3 feedback loop flows:
1) a process where community feedback flows to internal teams
2) a process where community feature requests flows to internal teams
3) a process where internal teams can research the community
Results: We received majority buy-in from product and user research teams to move forward with these feedback loops.
Phase 5: Creating Community Architecture & Design
Why: I kept in mind these requirements collected earlier:
The business wants to create a feedback loop between Creators and product teams so that their roadmaps can be shaped by Creator feedback and requests.
Community needed a way to send inquiries involving PII or subscription information with Support so that it can be handled privately
Community needs a way to foster a healthy community where Creators can connect with each other, find peer support, and feel like they are contributing to the future of Picsart
Method: I then collaborated with Ops, Engineering, Design, and Legal to set up the community platform that addressed each of the mentioned requirements respectively:
We created Feedback categories and Feature Request categories so that we could segment, sort, and find the posts
We integrated Zendesk with the platform so that all sensitive inquiries could be sent to Support
We included fun categories that fostered peer support such as General Chat and Tips & Tricks, private spaces for Masters, and involved the community around all major decisions concerning the community platform
As a private beta test, we migrated the Picsart Masters community to test the platform.
Results: We increased feedback and feature requests by 4000% since the Product Community platform launched, and 80% of members were satisfied by the Picsart Community team and felt like their voices are being heard.
Phase 6: Scaling the Product Community
Why: We successfully beta launched the Product Community by migrating our Masters Community to the new platform; we then needed to scale the Product Community, by strategically recruiting Picsart super users that are enthusiastic about sharing feedback and ideas with the business. Selecting users that fit our specific requirements creates a robust community culture first, so that as we gradually scale, the culture spreads as more users join.
Method: I first consulted with User Research and Product on what constitutes a Picsart super user. I took those requirements and added additional requirements, such as the ability to share feedback and feature requests with great detail. We found super users by recruiting through these channels:
Launching in-app communications in Picsart’s major platforms
Uploading banners in Picsart’s major platforms
Sending out external communications to Picsart users
We also set up a robust onboarding regimen, so that new users felt welcomed and can familiarize quickly with the community.
Results: We were able to double the size of the product community in the first 2 months after launch, with 50% of new registered users creating a post.
Phase 7: Implementing the Feedback Loop
Why: Once we housed more users in the community and received more feedback, we began setting up the feedback loop with product and user research teams. I kept in mind the requirements collected earlier:
Product and user research teams need a way to organize and track user feedback/requests
User research needed a way to conduct research with Picsart Creators, such as longitudinal studies, surveys, and moderated interviews
Community needed a way of sharing progress updates from product teams back with users
We implemented the product feedback loop flows mentioned previously.
Method: The ideal state was to create an automated solution that could bring feedback and feature requests into a centralized, searchable repository. However, because this ideal state would take months to implement, I created an interim test solution with product teams.
Started bottom-up by coordinating monthly chats with APMs and PMs that were most receptive and received the most feedback from the Product Community
Manually inserted the feedback and feature requests into a Excel sheet and reviewed those in the monthly chats. Included a progress status that PMs could fill out so that the Community team could communicate updates to members
Created community advisory boards where user research could interview (moderated interviews, longitudinal studies) and test designs/prototypes/builds with community members
Results: 7+ more feature requests are being reviewed, built, and/or launched based off of community feedback (25+ total since I started my work). 4+ additional major research initiatives were explored using community members (8+ total), which resulted in new features and improvements being launched to the product.
There is still more work to be done with the Picsart Product Community. Big thanks to the Picsart team for supporting the vision of community-led product development.