Leveraging social media for deep user Insights.
I know everyone kind of hates user interviews, it’s tiresome and very hard to reach people especially if you do not have any users or warm leads, it’s excruciating and you have to put in a lot of work in order to get a few people to talk with.
Of course, you still have to talk to your users at some point but it’s a great step in the doorway to start learning about your users.
In this article, I’ll share a method that can rapidly uncover user pain points and desired outcomes, easing your way into more in-depth user conversations.
First, you have to find where you’re people are spending time, find a community where they are active, in my case, it was an FB group, and craft a question using the following structure, inspired by “The Mom Test” book:
Vision: Present the problem, vision, or industry you’re addressing without revealing your solution.
Framing: Set expectations about your project stage and clarify that you’re not selling anything.
Weakness: Express a specific challenge you’re facing, inviting others to offer their insights.
Pedestal: Show how uniquely valuable their input would be.
Ask: Clearly request their assistance.
Here’s a screenshot from the Facebook post I’ve made in a community of around 20k people on FB.
An effective post not only captures attention but also encourages honest, direct feedback. The more controversial you get the better engagement. People will be very blunt with you, this is what you need at this stage. Remember, you want to appear open and eager to learn, not uninformed.
Ok, but how do you extract pain points and desired outcomes from this?
Here’s where the magic happens. After collecting responses, I use a technique called “message mining,” as demonstrated by Momoko Price. Each comment is added to a spreadsheet, and I analyze the main topic, and key message (motivation, value, anxiety), and categorize it (pain point/problem, objection, desired outcome).
Next, I group these into themes and look for patterns. This method revealed 36 distinct pain points and desired outcomes from just one Facebook post!
Now I have a more accurate representation of each topic so I can easily filter all the messages based on certain topics, and key messages and easily categorize them based on pain points, desired outcomes, anxieties, objections, and so on…
This approach not only garners quick insights but also helps in warming up leads for future in-depth interviews. By engaging directly with your target audience in a space they’re comfortable in, you can gather invaluable information that might otherwise take months to collect.
By refining your approach to user research with these strategies, you’re well on your way to gaining deeper user insights with less effort.
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