Product management and SEO in a community driven environment

Or "Why does Fitbit come across as arrogant"

Have you ever asked yourself the question "How do I make the device do this"?

A few years ago, you would look in the manual. Nowadays, you use Google

Which is why it is strange that a lean and modern company like Fitbit made such a horrid "google" experience, thanks too a faulty Search Engine Optimization and Community Management.

Some time ago, I bought the Fitbit Versa. I needed a smartwatch with a heart rate monitor, notifications and app support. Since my trusty Pebble Steel was no longer supported, I went for the Versa.

Immediately, two things struck me:

• this is a very nice comfortable device with loads of possibilities
• the screen shuts down automatically to save battery

The screen lights up when you flick your wrist to look at it - which is a really nice feature. As long as it works.

However, I did not buy this to track my activity, but to monitor it. Specifically, to see my heart rate during jogging and biking. So I almost panicked when I realized that I would have to flick my wrist whenever I wanted to se my heart rate. Which meant taking my hand of the handlebar of the bike.

So, what to do? Return the device?

I turned to Google.

The first couple of hits were from the Fitbit forums. Nice!

A lot of people have asked how to do this, and the welcoming forum community politely gave the informative answer: you can't. When the users pressed the issue, saying that this makes the device useless, the community went passive-aggressive (Which makes sense, it is not their fault). The issue was marked as "solved".

So I almost decided to take the device back.

But after some more thinking I bypassed google and started digging into the Fitbit product web pages.

And there it was: they've added a setting allowing the screen to be on during an activity. Brilliant!

Thank you. Except the manua...erm...Google, still said it could not be done.

So the moral of our story is: If you are a product manager for a product with a community, remember that

Google will make the community your user manual and your product description.

Make sure you have a way to update the community with facts. Go into the forums with a sticky post that says "thanks for all your great feedback, this feature was added from version x"