Hey there,
I'm Ellie 🙋🏼‍♀️

'Come for the tool, stay for the network'

• In his book, 'The Cold Start Problem', Andrew Chen explores the idea of 'the network effect' and how it can be utilised to grow and maintain your user base.
• As a product team, we decided our product was lacking this 'network effect' - We had so many great tools to offer our users, but wanted to improve retention.
• Based on past user research and behaviour, we made the assumption that incorporating more network-driven features would help enhance retention and engagement.

Effort / impact matrix

Within the product team, we came up with several concepts and features we could incorporate into the platform to increase our network effect. We used the effort / impact matrix to help determine which of these features we should incorporate next.

Settling on the addition of a newsfeed feature

We decided to prioritise creating a simple newsfeed for our media which we would launch as soon as possible. We decided that we would start with this feature because:

• It wouldn't take a lot of design or dev time compared to the big impact it would have on our users (high impact / low effort).
  
• We wouldn't need any new data to create the MVP.
• There was demand from our users from previous research - We knew our users had asked for this feature.
• We had already previously undertaken user research sessions on Zoom with several users to show an early concept, and users responded positively.
• We could start with a basic MVP product and easily ship gradual iterations and improvements.
• The newsfeed would provide a base for other network features such as liking, pinning, following, messaging, commenting, media and brand profiles etc.

Brief and key objectives

• Add a newsfeed feature onto the platform (on the media side).
• Start with an MVP, and quickly ship iterations to add more interactivity.
• Provide one single place where media can see all the latest activity and different content types from brands on Press Loft.
• Create the basis where our 'network effect' can begin.
• Increase site activity, time spent on site, and logins.
• Improve brands' perceived value of the platform by providing another means of positive feedback from media (eg. likes).

Hotjar heatmaps

As the newsfeed would be replacing the existing landing screen for media users logging in, it was important to look at engagement of the current landing screen to ensure we wouldn't be negatively affecting any user experience by removing key areas that were frequently engaged with or clicked.

Heatmap findings

The heatmaps from the current landing screen showed that users often used the links to our core features at the top of the page to take their next action on site. Therefore, I decided to keep the core actions as part of the MVP newsfeed. We could then later measure their use on the newsfeed page and decide whether these links could be replaced with profile actions, which would suit more for the network concept.

The heatmaps also showed that the trends on the home page were highly engaged with. Because trends are such a key feature of the site, I made the decision to add a smaller column specifically for trends.

All of the other sections on the current landing screen displayed general, latest content. The content from these sections wouldn't be lost but would now form part of the content within a much more engaging feed-style page.

This is what I came up with for the MVP newsfeed!

Design breakpoints

Smaller screens

I made the decision to remove the trends column on smaller screens, in favour of the content feed being the star of the show. We already knew that media who would visit on mobile were much more likely to be influencers, rather than journalists, and were much less interested in trends and images, but we would monitor the success on different devices going forward. Recent trends would still appear in the feed, and were still easily accessible from the main site menu.

Mobile breakpoint

At the mobile breakpoint, I added an expandable core actions section to the top of the feed. I made the decision to include the 'Collaboration opportunities' link first as this was the main item that was heavily engaged with on mobile by influencers, contrasting with the desktop heatmaps, which yielded quite different results. I also included the 'Trends' link (in the absence of the trends column), as well as the 'Download images' link which was also engaged with on the heatmap.

Card types for the MVP

The first card types for the feed would be:

• New collections
• New images
• New brands
• New collaboration opportunities
• New trends
• New press releases

Examples of populated cards

Adding an action bar to the cards

For development sprint purposes, the initial cards were designed to stand alone, but with future actions in mind. The first actions to be implemented were likely to be liking and saving, but the design would allow for more action types like sharing and commenting to fit right in.

I designed the email, header, and wrote the content for a simple launch email which we would send to our media users. We will later integrate more automated emails and notifications about site network activity and the newsfeed.

We quickly introduced the ability for media to save posts - a simple update that required minimal effort but offered significant value to users. This aims to help media to utilise and keep track of content they see and are interested in, but don't need right now. This also introduces the idea of saving to media, which can be expanded upon later in a separate project where we will add the save feature to other areas of the site such as the image library, press releases, etc. We also chose to include liking in this update, as it didn’t require any additional modifications beyond displaying a count of likes. At this stage, as the planned notification centre had not yet been implemented, likes wouldn't actually notify brands. However, we wanted media to begin familiarising themselves with the concept of liking as well.

The next major implementation was introducing the ability for media to follow brands. While following was integrated across various parts of the platform, we chose to add the following component to feed cards as one of the starting points, providing a simple and intuitive way for media to follow brands. With this, we introduced a "Following" tab on the feed, enabling media to scan updates exclusively from brands they followed, with the goal of increasing feed relevance and user engagement. Looking ahead, we planned to notify media about updates from followed brands once the planned notification centre was implemented.

The next natural step in promoting the concept of a 'network' was to introduce the idea of a more visible 'public profile' for media members on Press Loft. While media already had some profile elements in place, such as their name, profile picture, and bio, these had never really been displayed to brands using the platform. To address this, we developed an MVP for a profile page specifically for media members. With this, we revamped the left-hand section of the newsfeed to showcase profile elements, effectively acting as a prompt for media to review and update their profiles, helping to build a more connected and engaging network.

Comparing the 6 months before launch to the 6 months after launch for sessions involving the newsfeed, both session duration and average pages per session have shown significant improvement. Additionally, the bounce rate has decreased, indicating a positive impact on user engagement.

The avg. time on page and total clicks have also increased.

We set up reports in Google Analytics to track activity around the newsfeed cards. This report shows a steady increase in card engagement over time. While there was an initial spike, possibly due to launch marketing efforts or increased internal testing, the metrics stabilised and began to climb consistently, with the growth accelerating further after the launch of our notification centre.

Since launching the feature allowing media to follow brands, we've seen a consistent rise in follow activity. These follows will be leveraged to personalise notifications, driving media back to the site and enhancing overall engagement.

The download engagement rate has improved when comparing 2023 to 2024, reflecting a positive shift year on year, meaning progress toward our North Star: the rate of downloads by journalists logging in. This increase is encouraging and suggests that recent updates may be having a significant impact. While we can’t directly attribute this growth to the Newsfeed and Network Effect project alone, it’s reasonable to assume that these initiatives are contributing positively to our core goal. However, it's important to note that we’ve also implemented several other site updates during this period, which may have played a role as well. Still, the upward trajectory in download percentages could point to the Newsfeed fostering greater engagement and interaction, supporting the idea that it’s having a positive influence on our North Star metric.

Analysis going forward

I will use the following tools going forward to monitor the success of the newsfeed and as a basis for iterations.

• Google Analytics and Tag Manager
• HotJar recordings and heatmaps
• Our own recorded stats on Redash

Future iterations to the newsfeed

• More post types
• Improving the algorithm to show more personalised content
• More interactivity including commenting
• More profile actions