Question

Instagram recently decided to hide like counts on posts. How would you measure the success of this new feature?

Answer 1

Clarify question

- Is the count hidden for a user's own post or a user won't be able to see the count for other's posts? : A user won't be able to see the count on other's posts. Follow up, does it also apply to views? Nope. Its only like counts

- What is the goal of hiding the count? : Reduce competition and stress from users

- Was there any problem with that user were facing with the count? : People were getting competitive

- Is this rolled out worldwide? : Starting with a limited market but the plan is to roll out the worldwide

Goal:

The goal of the feature is to make Instagram a more positive place by engaging users to share more content rather than compete with each other. Which is the original goal of insta to "capture and share the world's moment"

Metrics:

* # of posts / user / wow

* # of "bot likes" / wow (it should decrease)

* # likes /posts / user

* # stories posted instead of insta posts/user (if the user chooses another mechanism to get validation)

* DAUs

Comments

How about some risk metrics?

For example, influencers may not be happy with this feature and their posts may go down?

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The answer is missing a few steps. Check out the site's interview guide on metrics questions https://www.productmanagementexercises.com/how-to-answer-a-metrics-question

Answer 2

1. what is the like counts feature? is it only for viewer to see who they following have how many likes? Or not display how many likes on their own posts? Does it apply to stories? or just posts? only on others, i can still see how many likes do i receive but i do not know other's likes counts

2. Will this feature apply to all global instagram accounts? or just US? or specific set of customers? global accounts

3. Will this feature only limited on IOS app or Andriod or both? both devices

4. Why are we doing this? create positive and less competetion with INS customers for engagement. To prevent people get bot likes to increase their popularity

5. what is the success? meaning after i launched this feature, 1) users didn't go away, engagement is still there or even better, 2) people still click likes when they like some content/post, 3) less bot likes

then metrics:

1). # of likes per post per user per week

2) # of bot likes per post per user per week (should decrease)

3) # of post per week

Answer 3

Instagram recently decided to hide like counts on posts. How would you measure the success of this new feature?

 

Clarifying questions:

 

Interviewee: Is it only for user posts or is this feature also applicable to advertisements? 

Interviewer: Applicable to both

Interviewee: What is the new experience like?

Interviewer: Likes will be only hidden from followers but the orginal creator of a post can still view the number of likes

Interviewee: I would now like to think about 1) user personas and their pain-points, 2) feature goals and 3) feature tradeoff and then have a discussion about metrics for measuring the success of this product

Interviewer:  sure, sounds good

 

Interviewee:

User personas:

 

1a) Content creators: These are users who create posts through their pictures and share them with their communities and receive encouragement through likes. They get more followers based on numbers of likes and this has some correlation with them receiving business offers i.e., a fitness enthusiast receives healthy food to advertise. Likes create positive feedback loops. It can also be demotivating to a few content creators who don't have many followers and hence don't get as many likes for a similar post. It can also be initimidating for new users to put themselves out and share something given these uber popular content creators.

 

1b) Content consumers: These are users who interact with the feed on their home page and  support feeds through their likes. They can get influenced by the existing number of likes 

 

2) Feature goals: 

a) To reduce biasing of users

b) To reduce frustration or intimidation or insecurity for a few content creators by making the platform equal

 

3) Feature tradeoffs:

a) Increase in number of followers for a few content creators (not based on likes)

b) Potentially business revenue for content creators

c) Increase in number of likes (social effect)

 

Success of this feature:

 

Think of metrics that directly correlate to the goal of this feature

 

1) # of posts before and after launch of this feature (should go up)

2) # of likes per post before and after launch of this feature (this may go down)

3) # of DAUs (should go up)

4) overall time spent on the app (should go up)

5) # of followers/user (the inflated following may go down)

 

Qual survey: Customer satisfaction survery similar to NPS to measure overall sentiment of the users.

 

In summary, the feature goal is to democratize the platform and reduce intimidation, frustration and biasing of users, and to measure the success, I would measure active users, number of posts, time per user, and average followers/user.