The Community Slicer is the engine behind Advanced Audience Selection in Auto FGD. When you run a Focus Group Discussion, you normally engage your entire selected community. The Community Slicer lets you narrow that community down to a precise subset , a slice without changing or duplicating the community itself.
A slice is optional if you do not create one, the FGD runs with the full community as usual.
What can I do with it?
Use the Community Slicer when… | Example |
You only want to hear from a specific demographic segment | Millennials from the Northeast who are upper-income |
Your research question is relevant to a sub-group, not the whole community | Couples without children for a childcare product concept test |
You want to compare results across multiple targeted FGDs using the same community | Run one FGD with Gen Z, another with Baby Boomers, same community, different slices |
You have specific personas or agents in mind | Hand-select 15 agents whose profiles match your target buyer |
Two slicing modes
You can define a slice in two ways. Only one mode can be used per slice.
Community Slicing
Filter your community by simply clicking on demographic options — no typing or setup needed. Your matching agent count updates instantly with each selection. Best for segment-level targeting.
Agent Selection
Hand-pick individual agents by name. View full agent profiles before choosing. Filter agents by demographics to narrow the list. Best for persona-specific or curated FGDs.
How to access Advanced Audience Selection
Advanced Audience Selection appears on the FGD creation page after you have selected a target community. It is optional.
Navigate to the FGD creation page and complete your research context (upload a brief or type your objective).
Select your Target Audience community. Click the + button in the Target Audience section and choose a community from the modal.
Once a community is selected, an Advanced Audience Selection row appears below the community card, showing the label “Filter audience or specific agents” and a ✂ Slice button.
Click the Slice button to open the dropdown. You will see two options:
+ Create New Slice — build a new slice from scratch
Bookmarked Slices — reuse a previously saved slice
💡 Note: The Slice button is only visible after a community is selected. If you change your community, any applied slice will be cleared.
Creating a new slice
Click + Create New Slice to open the New Slice modal. The modal header shows the name of your selected community so you always know which community you are slicing. The modal has two tabs: Community Slicing (active by default) and Agent Selection.
⚠️ One mode per slice. You can use either Community Slicing or Agent Selection, not both in the same slice. If you switch tabs after making selections, a “Switch mode?” confirmation dialog will appear warning you that switching will clear your current selections in that tab.
Mode 1 — Community Slicing
Community Slicing lets you filter your community by clicking on demographic options — for example, selecting Millennials from Age Group, or Upper-income from Household Income. You do not need to know individual agent names. Just pick the characteristics you want, and the system instantly shows you how many agents match.
How filtering works
The modal displays demographic categories grouped under Basic Profile (e.g. Age Group, Ethnicity, Family Structure, Marital Status, Household Income). Each category lists its values as clickable pills with the agent count beside each — for example Millennials (Born 1981–1996) 29.
Click a value to apply it as a filter — for example, click Female under Gender:
The selected pill shows a purple border to confirm it is active.
All other values in the same category are immediately greyed out and become unclickable — you can only select one value per category at a time.
Counts on pills in other categories update instantly to reflect only agents that match your current selection. Pills whose count drops to zero are automatically greyed out and unclickable.
You can stack filters across multiple categories to narrow further — for example: Millennials (Age Group) + Upper-income (Household Income) + Couple without children (Family Structure). Each selection updates all remaining counts.
To remove a filter, click the active (purple-bordered) pill again. Counts restore to the pre-filter state.
Zero-agent combinations are impossible. The greying system is a live safety net, options that would result in zero agents are blocked before you can select them, so every selectable combination is guaranteed to have at least one agent.
Reading the agent counter
The bottom-left of the modal shows how many agents match your current filters as an overflow avatar stack. For example: 3 avatars + “+26 Agents (1 filter)” means total = 3 + 26 = 29 agents. The (1 filter) label tells you how many filters are currently active.
Searching for a category
Use the Search Category bar to quickly find any category or value by name — for example, typing us surfaces Country of Current Residence → USA.
Applying the slice
When you are satisfied with your selections, click Apply. The modal closes and the FGD page updates to show the filtered agent count. Click Cancel at any time to discard all selections and close without applying.
Mode 2 — Agent Selection
Agent Selection lets you hand-pick specific individual agents for your FGD. This is useful when you want to choose based on detailed persona information rather than broad demographic categories.
Browsing and selecting agents
The modal lists all agents in the community, showing each agent’s photo, name, gender, country, and generation.
Click any agent row to select that agent — the row highlights in purple and the counter updates (avatars + N = total selected). Click the same row again to deselect.
To narrow the agent list:
Use the Search Agent bar to search by name.
Click the filter icon (top-right) to filter agents by demographic categories. Click Apply Filters to apply. An active filter pill appears above the list with a × to remove it. The filter icon shows a badge counting active filters.
To review an agent’s full profile before selecting, click the › chevron on the right of any agent row. The profile page shows:
Age Group, Ethnicity, Country & Region of Current Residence, Marital Status, Family Structure, Number of Children, Household Income, Languages Spoken, Persona One-liner
Expandable Skills & Talents and Views & Opinions sections
A collapse/expand toggle (top-right) to see a summary view or the full profile
On the profile page, click Select to add the agent, or Deselect if they are already selected. Click Back to return to the list — your scroll position and active filters are preserved.
⚠️ Minimum one agent required. The Select Agent button is greyed out until at least one agent is selected.
When ready, click Select Agents to apply your selection and close the modal.
Switching between modes
You can switch between Community Slicing and Agent Selection tabs at any time. However, because only one mode can be active per slice, switching after making selections will clear the current tab’s work.
If you click the other tab while selections are active, a “Switch mode?” dialog appears:
“Switching modes will clear your current selections in this tab.”
Close — stays in the current mode, selections kept.
Continue — switches tab and clears all current selections.
If no selections have been made, the tab switches immediately with no dialog.
Saving and reusing slices (Bookmarks)
You can save any slice configuration as a bookmark to reuse it in future FGDs without rebuilding from scratch.
Saving a bookmark
With the New Slice modal open and your slice configured, click the bookmark (flag) icon in the top-right of the modal header. A small panel appears with an Add Name text field.
Type a name for the slice — blank or whitespace-only names are not accepted.
Click Bookmark to save. Click Close to dismiss without saving.
Once saved, the bookmark name appears in the Bookmarked Slices section of the Slice dropdown whenever you are using the same community.
Loading a bookmark
Click the Slice button and select a bookmark name from the dropdown. The New Slice modal opens with the saved filters or agent selections pre-loaded. You can apply it as-is or modify it before applying.
⚠️ Editing a bookmark creates a new slice — it does not overwrite the original. As soon as you change any filter or agent selection after loading a bookmark, the modal title reverts to “New Slice” and the bookmark icon returns to its unsaved state. Your original bookmark is unchanged. To save the modified version, click the bookmark icon and give it a new name.
Removing a bookmark
On the FGD page, if the applied slice is a saved bookmark, the bookmark icon appears purple (filled). Clicking it shows a “Remove this bookmark?” popover. Click Remove to delete the bookmark from your saved list, or Cancel to keep it.
Removing a bookmark does not remove the applied slice from the current FGD — it only removes it from the dropdown. The slice remains applied until you remove it with the trash icon.
Managing an applied slice on the FGD page
Once you apply a slice, the Target Audience section updates to show the community name, agent avatar stack, and total agent count. Three icons appear on the slice row:
Icon | Action |
✏️ Pencil (Edit) | Reopens the New Slice modal with the current configuration pre-loaded so you can modify it. |
🔖 Bookmark (Flag) | Purple/filled when the slice is a saved bookmark — click to remove the bookmark. Outline when not yet bookmarked — click to open the save panel and give it a name. |
🗑️ Trash (Remove) | Removes the slice entirely. The Target Audience reverts to the full community. |
Minimum agent recommendation
Socialtrait recommends a minimum of 10 agents for a statistically meaningful FGD. If your applied slice results in fewer than 10 agents, an amber warning banner appears:
⚠️ “Recommended minimum number of agents for FGD is 10”
This warning is advisory only — not a blocker. You can proceed and kick off research with as few as 1 agent. To broaden your selection, click the pencil icon to edit the slice and adjust your filters or add more agents.
Quick reference: Community Slicing vs Agent Selection
| Community Slicing | Agent Selection |
How you choose | Click on demographic filter values | Hand-pick individual agents |
Selection unit | One demographic value selected per category | Individual agents (one or more) |
Zero-agent risk | Not possible — greying prevents it | Not possible — button disabled at 0 |
Live count feedback | Counts update instantly with each filter | Counter updates per agent click |
Profile viewing | Not available in this mode | Full profile via › chevron |
Best for | Segment-level research | Persona-level or curated FGDs |
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