These can take place at a specified venue, in your home, on the phone or online in at a specified chat room.  A lot of the ones I have been invited to attend, are groups of people at a venue discussing a chosen topic. The topic can be on absolutely anything.

You will usually get paid cash, anything from £30 to £150. Quite good!

Before you get too excited I should probably mention that usually you are only allowed to do a focus group once every six months.  It varies for each research company though.

They can take between 1 hour and 3 hours.  I have heard of ones being longer though, like four hours, but they are fairly rare!

There are often refreshments at venues too.

You get a lot of the details sent to you before accepting an invitation, so you can choose what ones suit you the best.

Remember they do like you to be quite a confident, talkative person so that you can contribute well to discussions, so you have to think about what you are comfortable doing before applying.

Here is some information about the best places to get more information and join up with if you are interested in trying focus groups.

Make sure you keep your profile details about yourself up to date because you are then more likely to be chosen to be invited to take part in a focus group.

It is a good idea to keep a note somewhere of which ones you sign up with and what your account details are.  Making a note of which websites you need to check for opportunities to do focus groups is a good idea too.  Some will send you emails but other will want you to check the website.  

Always be honest as well, there is no point lying to take part in a focus group where you have no idea about what you are discussing.