Choosing a North Star and Counter-Metrics for Facebook Stories

You are the product manager for Facebook Stories, the format in which people share pictures or text that disappear from their friends' view after 24 hours and then remain in the poster's private archive. Which metrics would you use to judge whether Stories is succeeding, and which one would you treat as the most important? ```hint Two sides of every Story Stories only work when some people post and others watch and respond. Consider what each group needs before settling on one number. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Are we measuring Stories from individual people only, or also from businesses and public figures who post Stories? - Is Stories a mature product we are monitoring for health, or a recent launch still building adoption? - Should success be judged within Stories alone, or by its effect on Facebook as a whole, including Feed activity and ad revenue? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - The purpose of Stories within Facebook's mission and what success means for it. - Separate metrics for people who post and people who watch, across adoption, engagement and retention. - One prioritized metric, precisely defined, with the reason it was chosen. - Counter-metrics for that metric's blind spots, including effects on the rest of Facebook. ### Follow-up Questions - After a redesign your main metric rises, but time in Feed falls by a similar amount. Is Stories succeeding? - The number of people viewing Stories keeps growing while the number posting stays flat. What might cause this, and what would you do? - How would you tell whether Stories brings people closer to their friends rather than just filling idle time? - If you were asked instead to set goals for Stories (what it should achieve for the people who use it and for the Facebook app as a whole, then how you would measure it), how would you state those goals and tie each one to a metric?