Positioning TV to Book Consumers
My Role
Project Lead, User Experience Researcher
Team
Chris Gallelo . Head of Product
Travis Weber . Head of Design
Cory Maran . Marketing Lead / Co-Interviewer
Stakeholders
Product, Marketing
Problem
Fable has successfully created a thriving community for book lovers, offering a safe space for discussions around favorite genres like spicy romance and gory thrillers. However, with the decision to expand into TV discussions, there was uncertainty about how the book-centric community would react to this new content. The challenge was to test whether the marketing language, selected TV shows, and existing features designed for book discussions would resonate with TV content.
Outcome
The research revealed that existing users were excited about the integration of TV discussions, feeling it made the platform more inclusive. Despite initial resistance from some users, the prototype received positive feedback, indicating a strong demand for TV discussion features. The findings highlighted the potential for genre-based TV clubs and validated the need for targeted discovery features. The introduction of TV discussions has not only maintained user engagement but also attracted new users, driven significantly by influencers. This expansion has positioned Fable to cater to a broader audience, blending book and TV content seamlessly.
Goals and Methods
At Fable, we've built a thriving community where book lovers can geek out on their favorite spicy romance novels or gory thrillers. Our clubs, like 'Spicy Romance' and 'Killer Thriller Crew,' have flourished, providing a safe space for like-minded readers to connect. Now, we're ready to expand beyond books and introduce TV discussions! Our primary research aimed to gauge how our book-centric community will react to TV content, and beyond that we wanted to test 3 things: Marketing language, shows to launch with and whether the features we’ve built for TV that work for books will still work for TV.
We wanted to talk to those who were, in past surveys on TV, begging us to keep Fable books-only, as well as people in the book space, like influencers, who had a palate for discussing TV. We had limited time and scheduled as many interviews as we could in a one-week span.
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At Fable, we've built a thriving community where book lovers can geek out on their favorite spicy romance novels or gory thrillers. Our clubs, like 'Spicy Romance' and 'Killer Thriller Crew,' have flourished, providing a safe space for like-minded readers to connect. Now, we're ready to expand beyond books and introduce TV discussions! Our primary research aimed to gauge how our book-centric community will react to TV content, and beyond that we wanted to test 3 things: Marketing language, shows to launch with and whether the features we’ve built for TV that work for books will still work for TV.
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Analyze past surveys
Understand where our MVP might miss, like whether the features we've built for TV make sense to book consumers
Gain insights that can help inform the V2 roadmap for this feature
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Mine past surveys and analyses for qual and quant assumptions
Qualitative interviews
6 Fable Users, 5 Non-Fable Users
Pre- and Post interview surveys
Insights
Strongest Risks & Unknowns
Our research highlighted some risks in onboarding TV, and in the future other media formats. Our primary pipeline for onboarding new types of content is through influencers, and it’s important to source influencers that focus on inclusivity and positivity, to help continue to shape a community of positively-minded users.
Positive Signals and Opportunities
Fandoms are an important part of our current atmosphers on Fable, as ‘Spicy Romance’ readers make up a large part of our demographic. It’s important, as we scale, to understand new fandoms in content areas, as we look to expand there. For example, our test prototype included content from Seinfeld and other cult shows, and through testing, we learned that we needed to pivot content to K-Dramas and Reality, like RuPaul’s Drag Race, in order to be relevant with both our demographics currently and new fandoms we wanted to onboard.
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Existing users were excited to see Books and TV together on Fable, feeling it made the platform more inclusive to different types of stories.
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Fable users rated 9.5/10 and Non-Fable users 8.2/10 on recommending Fable to a friend.
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Even users initially opposed to TV discussions became highly engaged once they experienced the prototype, indicating a strong demand for a platform to discuss TV shows. Shows like Teen Mom and RuPaul’s Drag Race didn’t feel ‘discussable’ until they saw opportunity in the club format.
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There is significant interest in genre-based clubs (e.g., Anime, K-Drama, Reality TV) and a need for targeted discovery features, validating the potential success of integrating TV into Fable.
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Fable users showed more enthusiasm than Non-Fable users, indicating a need to better demonstrate the platform's value to first-time users.
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Non-Fable users valued 'organization' and 'recommendation' over 'community,' highlighting the need to build initial trust and community engagement for new users.
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Engaging diverse influencers is crucial for both current and potential users, as influencers play a significant role in community trust and engagement.
Long-term impact
Content on Fable has been thriving, with slower, steadier growth. Primarily driven by influencers, clubs are showing a strong need for megathreads (which we uncovered in research) as people binge, and require momentary spurts of discussion. We’ve had an incredible, growing response to discussing and discovering TV shows on-platform.
Influencer club growth for TV Shows is helping us gain users in the TV market, it’s picking up quite steadily with the big names that have begun to discuss shows on our platform.
TV Show clubs are not yet gaining the popularity today that our book clubs are, but you’ll notice that a positive is that, while every month most clubs turn over a book to read a new one, TV show clubs are much more sporadic because of the digestion of content. We’ll continue to watch how this trends.
More
Join the discussion with what you’re currently reading and watching at Fable.co.