How Would You Improve Instagram as a Product Manager?
One of the most common questions that Product Managers have to deal with is how they would improve the product they are managing. Let’s take Instagram for example. In this blog, I will talk about the steps that I, as a Product Manager at Instagram would take to improve it. Also, I will assume this to be more of an interview scenario and so my approach will be how I would think about this in a relatively short 30 - 45 minutes call.
- Narrowing Down
Even though Instagram as a platform is considered to be one big social media, within the product, several modules work together to make Instagram what it is. So, it is important to not try to boil the entire ocean and try to improve Instagram as a whole. Instead, I will narrow it down to the part that I want to improve and focus only on that. So for this blog, I will focus on Instagram Stories and will look at how I can improve it.
2. Clarifying the Product and Clarifying Questions
Before jumping to the actual answer, I will want to clarify what my high-level understanding is of the product. So about Instagram stories, we’re trying to look at the content creation part and the viewing experience. So when you go to the Instagram app you’re able to create a story through photos or videos and then we allow users to select stickers, polls, and Q&As, and then they’re able to share that story. Also, it only lasts for 24 hours. On the other hand, for the viewing experience, as a user, I’m able to view stories, and then I’m able to react or comment if I want to interact with what the creator is creating. In addition, I am also able to share these stories elsewhere.
Once I have clarified the product, I will move on to a few other questions that I would want to get answered before I dive in. Here, we are assuming that these “improvements” are only for the mobile application for now and that we are targeting a more “instagramable” city like New York to begin with and then we can always expand the scope later.
3. Mission of the Company
Instagram is a part of the now called “Meta” universe. So, we need to keep in mind that any improvements or changes that we do for Instagram should go along well with Meta’s mission as a company. As stated on their website,
“Originally founded in 2004 as Facebook, Meta’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”
This goes hand in hand with the mission of Instagram stories. We as a team at Instagram are providing this tool which is Instagram Stories as a way for users to uniquely express themselves and closer together.
4. Target User Groups
The majority of the users of Instagram, in general, would be —
- Gen-Z
- Millennials
- Boomers
The reason why age is a great aspect to segment on is that age group can easily be applied to any vertical that we get into whether that would be music, celebrities, tech, stocks, or any other vertical that we can think of.
Keeping in mind that we want to have an impact on as many users as possible, it makes sense for us to target Gen-Z first, then go after millennials, and then boomers at the end. An assumption we make here is that Gen-Z users are the ones that use Instagram Stories the most, have the highest adoption rate, and hence, contribute to the engagement rate the most. So, if we target them and improve their experience, we should be able to duplicate it for other groups.
5. Pain Points to Tackle
- Users are unable to freely express themselves—
Tik-Tok, one of Instagram Stories’ biggest competitors has immensely grown in the past couple of years, especially during the pandemic which has led to a decrease in usage and just stickiness in general on Instagram stories. One of the reasons for this shift could be that the users are not able to connect with their “close friends” and are not able to express themselves.
- Users are not able to feel seen and represented —
Looking into the tools of Instagram Stories that we have today, maybe they are just not unique enough to make users feel seen and represented. Gen-Z user groups' needs might be different from that of a Millennial or a Boomer group with Gen-Zs needing far more options to adequately represent themselves.
- Decrease in t=Trust in the Gen-Z User Group —
There could be a decrease in trust for Meta as a company following recent news and events as a whole. As a result, it’s a cascade of events where we see a decrease in engagement and time spent on Instagram stories. This has a direct effect on revenue as well because whenever you’re viewing a story, there are advertisements shown to the users between stories.
Picking a Problem to Tackle
It makes sense for us to look into the first pain point and look at improving the “close friends” experience because that’s going to influence Instagram stories’ usage. At the same time, we might gain the trust of Gen-Z because they might feel more engaged using our products and hence, increase their time spent on the platform. As a result, this is eventually going to influence revenue positively as well.
6. Solutions to the Prioritized Pain Point
- Allowing Gen-Z to Collaborate to Create a Story —
We could develop a way for Gen-Z to collaborate with a group of friends within close friends instead of just creating a story by snapping a video or photo on their own. How this would work is that, as a user, you can start creating a story and then pass it to your friend to record and add to it. This addition can be a new picture, video, or even just stickers. The idea is to make users feel like they are not the only ones doing the work. In other words, this could be something like a Google Doc but for Instagram Stories that users can share with their close friends
- Reminding Users to Create a Story —
This could be like a pre-emptive prompt for the user to remind them to create a story to celebrate a special occasion. For example, let's say one of your close friends’ birthday is coming up in a couple of days. So, Instagram can send you a reminder prompt to remind you of your friend's birthday and then possibly provide you a filter to create a birthday Instagram story for your friend.
- Gamifying the Process of Creating Instagram Stories —
We could have some kinds of rewards for the users when they post a story on Instagram. These rewards can be in the form of a progress bar, badges, or even streaks. Something like streaks can have users keep coming back and posting regularly on Instagram just to ensure that their streak is alive. The concept of ‘sunken cost’ can come into the picture here which points to the fact that once users have some effort gone into creating a streak, they are much more likely to come back and keep engaging with the platform to ensure that their efforts so far do not go to waste. This can be duplicated for viewing, sharing, and responding to stories as well.
Picking a Solution to Implement
If I was to pick one solution to implement to begin the improvement process, I would pick the feature that allows users to collaborate while creating the stories. I pick this because I think this has the most chances of being adopted easily. Also, this very easily could lead to a positive network effect where more users start using this feature, and the more it becomes entertaining and valuable for the users. Additionally, in the future, this can be incorporated with the second feature of creating stories in advance where a group of friends can create Instagram stories for a mutual friend to celebrate.
7. Metrics to Gauge Success
Now that we have decided to implement the collaboration feature, it is important to have some metrics in mind that will help us decide if the users are actually adopting it and if the feature is actually working.
North Star Metric: Number of stories collaborated AND posted
It is known that millions of stories are recorded every day but not all of them are posted on the platform. The whole idea of this collaboration feature is to help the user enjoy the experience with their close friend. So for this, it is important for them to actually post the stories after recording them. No matter how many times the recorded stories and shared internally unless they are posted, the collaboration tool fails.
Secondary Metric :
- Frequency of Posting Stories Per User—
At the end of the day, it’s not just a one-time thing. We want users to be able to repeatedly post stories and collaborate on a story again and again.
- Frequency of Stories Made Per User with Specific Group of People —
The idea behind this metric is to track if a user is using the collaboration feature to create stories with only specific close friends. This could help us identify if a particular segment of users, let's say, Instagram influencers are more likely to create collaborative stories with other influencers or some co-relations along similar lines
- Number of views for Collaborative Stories —
We could track the number of views received by these collaborative stories and compare them to the views received by regular stories to check if they are doing better or worse. this could help us decide our future strategies and also help us figure out if we want to push users toward collaborative stories
