Overview How to Use Groups

What Are Groups?

From a business perspective, groups are subsets, or segments, of all your users. Your users are grouped by their attributes, such as their registration status, last active date, department, role, or location.

From a technical perspective, a group is just a wrapper around a query and some metadata. Knowing this comes in handy if you are planning to create custom groups using advanced querying. But you may not find this necessary, because Firstup automatically creates a number of groups for you.

Why Do I Need Groups?

Use groups to target the right information to the right people. For users to actively follow a program, its information must be meaningful to them. Using groups enables you to restrict “noise” in your communications.

Use groups primarily to target topics and campaigns.

Using Groups to Target Topics

A topic by default targets all users, but can be defined by the groups who can see the topic. For example, you may want to create topics for users by region. To target a topic to the right groups:

1. In the Manage section, from the stack icon, select Publish and then Topics.
2. In the Edit Topic window, you can edit the topic name, description, and then target it to groups. To select each group, either scroll to the group name, or start typing its name until you see the group. Select it to include it in the topic.

If no groups are defined for the topic, every user is included in the topic.

Using Groups to Target Campaigns

The process for editing campaigns is the same as for editing topics. To target a campaign to the right groups:

1. In the Manage section, from the stack icon, select Connect and then Campaigns.
2. In the Edit Campaign window, you can edit the campaign name, description, and then target it to groups. To select each group, either scroll to the group name, or start typing its name until you see the group. Select it to include it in the campaign.

If no groups are defined for the campaign, the campaign will target every user.

Where Do Groups Come From?

To save you time, Firstup creates a number of groups for you by predicting which groups you will find useful. But if you want to get even more specific, you can create a custom group several ways. All this is discussed in How Groups Are Defined: Standard, Generated, and Custom .

How to Review Groups

To open the Groups page, click the stack icon in the upper left corner and navigate to Manage → Groups. To understand how groups are formed (their sources), refer to How Groups Are Defined: Standard, Generated, and Custom Groups.

Groups Highlights

We recommend regularly checking the groups in the Highlights section of the Groups page to get a better understanding of your users. Your Highlights section may look like this:

The groups in the Highlights example above are defined as follows:

• Active This Month: Users who have signed into the app (on mobile or web) at least once this calendar month (that is, the month of September, even if it is the 1st of September)
• Blocked: Users who have been blocked (these users can be unblocked on the Users page) and therefore can no longer access the app or receive notifications or campaigns
• Registration Complete: Users who have successfully finished registering and can sign in, share content, and follow topics
• Registration Incomplete: Users who have not finished one of the various steps in the registration process; for example, users who haven’t agreed to the Terms of Service, haven’t created a password, haven’t clicked their email confirmation link, etc.)
• Joined This Week: Users who joined the app for the first time this week (Sunday through Saturday in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC))
• Sharers This Week: Users who shared at least once piece of content externally this week (Sunday - Saturday UTC)
• Follows 1 Topic: Users who are following only one topic
• Follows Multiple Topics: Users who are following more than one topic

Group Descriptions

The description field of a group can be used to add clarity around when the group should be used, or why it was created.

Note: Descriptions are not editable for standard and generated groups. The description field is editable for custom groups and snapshots.

Groups Tags

Groups are organized by tags and you can search by tag.

For standard and generated groups, Firstup generates and applies the tags automatically. They cannot be edited. Tags include designations such as 'topics', 'location', and 'engagement'.

When creating a custom group you can enter your own tags. You can use any numbers and letters, but no special characters. Separate multiple tags with a comma. Consider using tags to find event-specific groups, groups that belong to you (use your own name!), or even add an initiative or campaign.

Add a tag while creating or editing a custom group:

Look at tags before opening a group from the Groups page:

Search by tag:

Searching for Groups

You can search for a group by its name, its source, or one of its tags into the search box. The search box displays related results as you type. Click the group that you want to open.

For example, if you want to find the groups of users who are following your topics, type 'subscribed to:' in the search bar to browse the groups for each topic that have at least one subscribed user.

Exporting Groups

While viewing or editing a group, you can select Export to generate a CSV file of the users.

Navigate to the Exports page to see the export history and download your exported group.

Creating a Snapshot of a Group

While viewing or editing an existing group, you can select Create Snapshot to create a static list of users who are currently in the group at the time you create the Snapshot.