Interview Questions › Metrics

Define success for Instagram Close Friends stories

You are the PM for Close Friends on Instagram Stories, which lets people share stories with a smaller hand-picked list. How would you measure whether it is successful?

Context

The feature has been live for a year. Leadership wants a single health metric for quarterly reviews plus a short list of supporting metrics.

Clarifying questions to ask first

• Is the goal more sharing overall or more intimate sharing?
• Are we judging creators, viewers or both?
• Is there any monetisation angle?

How to approach it

1. Tie the metric to why the feature exists (more authentic sharing)
2. Separate creator and viewer sides
3. Pick a North Star and supporting metrics
4. Add guardrails such as total story posting and viewer engagement

Framework: Goal of the product -> Users and value exchange -> North Star -> Supporting metrics by funnel stage -> Guardrails and counter-metrics -> Decision or target

Sample answer

• Weekly creators posting at least one Close Friends story
• Replies and DMs per Close Friends story view
• Share of posters who would not have posted publicly (incrementality)

1. Close Friends stories get about 3x the reply rate of public stories
2. About 18% of weekly story posters use Close Friends
3. Public story posting is flat among Close Friends users, so most Close Friends posting is additive

North Star: weekly creators posting at least one Close Friends story. Supporting: replies per view, list size health, incremental stories per creator. Guardrails: public story posting and overall time spent must not fall.

What interviewers look for

• Creators posting to Close Friends weekly
• Replies per Close Friends story
• Incremental stories posted