You're on the team for Instagram, and Stories engagement is doing well, but post engagement is going down. What would you do?

ASSUMPTIONS:

Instagram is very popular, and most new users probably join because their friends recommend it or because they see famous people using it. When they first join, they usually start by sending friend requests or following famous people, liking and commenting on posts, knowing more about them & posts are just below Follow button as well, then watching short updates called "stories." This matches a common trend in the industry, where over 50% of users scroll through their feeds from top to bottom to get a complete grasp of the user or content. In other words, they want to engage with the details right from the start during their initial interactions.

Conversely, returning users already have established connections with friends, celebrities, or brands they follow, leading them to invest less attention and interaction and thus, left ro right approach to change context frequently. This observation corresponds of the problem statement where engagement with stories remains strong. Therefore, if we must prioritize our efforts, it makes sense to initially focus on improving the experience for new users.

 
OBJECTIVE:

Since, I always like to pick the objective out of AAAERRR (Acquisition, activation, etc) & already the problem is narrowed it down to Engagement per se from your end. Also, most of the times, engagement linked with retention, if poor retention were the issue, it would likely have affected Stories engagement as well. However, since this isn't the case, we can reasonably assume that retention is satisfactory.

TOP USER GROUPS AND JOURNEY:

Individuals:

1. User activated 
2. Instagram suggests users to follow based on their Facebook profiles or popularity.
3. Send follow requests to private profiles, typically friends or celebrities
4. Send messages to private profiles or celebrities.
5. View videos/images (posts) of accepted private profiles or celebrities.
6. View stories after request acceptance or public profile viewing.
7: User might wait for the response
8. User close the App
9. User relaunch the App

Businesses (let's note that businesses are a relevant user group. However, in our current discussion, we won't be addressing their specific needs. In practice, though, businesses are an important user segment that requires consideration):

1. Perform the same actions as individuals.
2. Utilize Ad Manager for brand promotion, such as story and post reach.

SOLVING AND BREAKING IT DOWN:

I will categorize potential causes into internal and external factors:

Internal Factors:

Technology:

1.Evaluate post loading times to identify any delays compared to historical data.

2.Typically, when you begin browsing on most social media platforms, they load the next 4-5 pieces of content after you've viewed the initial set. We should investigate if there is a decline in performance after this initial set, as there may be an issue with a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or caching causing disruptions.

3.Are these issues occurring on particular operating systems or device brands? It's possible that a significant number of new users are using Android, and there could be a glitch specific to certain Android devices, such as high selling Samsung. We should consider narrowing down the investigation to identify if this is an OS or device-specific problem.

Platform:

Is there a notable increase in the type of media being shared? For example, while short videos are typically a highly engaging media format, we might be witnessing a surge in the sharing of text or image-based content. It's important to note that video content tends to generate three times more engagement than text or other formats, so this could be one of the contributing factors.

Metrics
Investigate specific engagement metrics, starting with opens and progressing to views, 5s views, clicks, and CTR to pinpoint where the decline is occurring.

Other Features and Cannibalization:

We need to look into whether any other teams have introduced new features that could be directly influencing post engagement. For example, if the Insta stories team has introduced a feature where WhatsApp Status and Insta stories collaborate, meaning that if your WhatsApp is linked with your Instagram ID, your Status will automatically be displayed on Instagram, or vice versa. This could potentially prompt users to shift their attention more towards Stories, even if they were previously using both features. It's crucial to organize a stakeholder discussion involving all relevant teams to address this matter..
 

External Factors:

Time:
Determine whether the decline is gradual or sudden, which can provide insights into the root cause.

Region:
Will refine my approach to identify the specific region where this issue is occurring. Initially, I will analyze the global average, and then I will segment regions into the top 5, top 10, and top 20, comparing the metrics within these groups to assist in pinpointing the problem area.

Industry: Assess if the decline is industry-wide or unique to Instagram.

Competitors:

I'd like to investigate whether a competitor has introduced features that resemble those relevant to our target audience and the types of posts we create. For example, if Facebook has introduced a feature that allows automatic comment generation using AI and making comments based on your relationship with followers or friends, this feature could be highly engaging and viral. People may be drawn to explore this feature and directly competing with posts , and it could have an impact on our platform.

𝐁𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬, 𝐈 𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞.