As a PM at Meta, how would you make users feel less guilty about using Instagram while also increasing revenue?

As with any product design interview exercise, let’s start by breaking down the problem at hand —

Make users “feel less guilty about using the product” + “increase revenue”

Clarifying questions:

• What is guilt? From my viewpoint, I have observed people wanting to reduce excessive use of social media platforms like Instagram because it leads to increased screen time, less productivity, potential health issues, seclusion, etc. If these people consciously recognize this need and repeat the same patterns, the results could lead to ‘GUILT’. So, can we assume, Guilt = Screen Time?

Assume → YES.

• Do we want to target any specific user persona? (Maybe based on age, gender, etc.?)

Assume→ No, up to you.

• There are multiple ways to increase revenue (for instance, through e-commerce, increasing Ads margins, etc.). Are we focusing on methodologies that would ‘reduce guilt’ and ‘increase revenue’ simultaneously?

Assume → Yes.

• Do we need to stick to any timeline?

Assume→ No, up to you.

• Do we have any resource constraints?

Assume → No.

• Are we targeting any specific geographies?

Assume→ No.

Less guilt: This can be achieved by actually reducing the screentime, or tweaking the content suggestion and adding more meaningful content suggestions to the users’ feed.

Increasing revenue: Instagram’s sources of revenue are: Ads and e-commerce. Both of these rely on user engagement. Instagram uses sophisticated algorithms that learn and re-learn user’s behavior, and choices, and produce relevant content. More engagement, more chances of revenue.

Our goal is to help users break out of excessive usage patterns and suggest meaningful content and while doing so, also maintain/increase engagement or revenue opportunities.

Who are the Users:

Instagram’s users can be divided broadly into these categories:

Types of users:

• Individual users (Power users | Casual users | Passive Users)
• Businesses
• Content Creators

From the definition of Guilt mentioned above, it makes sense for us to focus on power users who have more propensity to get ‘addicted’ to the platform.

User Persona:

• Demography — 18–25 years
• Not working/Early stage job | Have time at hand | Have career aspirations
• Greatly Influenced by social media.
• 3–5 hours of daily Instagram usage.

Pain points:

(What results in guilt)

• Users consciously recognize the excessive use of the platform, but the psychological hooks keep bringing them back (update from a friend’s life, the need to detach from the current environment, etc.) and the pattern never breaks.
• The platform algorithm is too smart to keep producing relevant content to bring the users back.
• Users recognize that time spent on Instagram can be utilized to learn relevant career skills (they have career aspirations and are influenced by others’ achievements). Unable to do so leads to more guilt.
• Users are stuck in the ‘not-useful content’ loop so deep that they don’t recognize the useful content anymore. Suggestions keep making it even more difficult to break the pattern.

Solutions:

Summary: The ideal solution would be to nudge the user to ‘reduce the usage’ or ‘engage with more meaningful content’ in a way that we don’t push them to a drop-off point. The drop in engagement (thus revenue opportunities) can be countered by adding substitute products (like courses, classes, etc.).

1. Content Restructuring → Recognize excessive platform usage (e.g. more than N logins/day, or 3+ hours/day, or 90 minutes/session for <Power users> → who are active daily in the past 1 month), and thereafter, push more learning-oriented content (Educational content, Sponsored courses — content specification through metadata like hashtags, or certain keywords). The platform can learn the interest (like investing, photography, etc.), and adjust the choice of content. Thereafter, readjust the clock daily!

I believe this will benefit content creators too, as they stand to gain more engagement. In terms of revenue, Instagram can benefit from sales commissions (in the case of sponsored content).

2. Lazy Loading → Introduce Lazy loading or Excessive usage prompts after extreme use (more than 5+ hours daily). The drawback is that the engagement will reduce without Instagram producing any additional revenue.

3. Add more Ads after certain usage: This will prompt the user to break out of the doomscrolling pattern and at the same time, will increase the CLTV.

Prioritization:

Since there is no resource or time constraint, I’m going to choose feature(s) that have maximum impact and that makes more sense for Instagram.

Out of the mentioned features, ‘Content Restructuring’ is my top pick as Instagram doesn’t have to compromise on engagement, and at the same time, the users get more value for their time. I believe that if a user leaves the platform with new learnings because of more meaningful content on their feed, it’ll ultimately help reduce the guilt. Also, this sounds more ethical and benefits content creators and consumers too.

Success Criteria:

• Avg time spent on app per day *(Monitor for before and after launch)
• DAU, MAU, WAU

{This will indicate the target group’s engagement patterns}

• ARPU {To indicate revenue}

And, that’s a wrap! Hope you found this exercise helpful. Do consider following me for more such exercises!! Thank you :)