Evaluating and launching Instagram Stories
Company: Meta
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Analytics & Experimentation
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Onsite
Scenario: Stories copy Snapchat’s ephemeral canvas and may capture new engagement—but might cannibalise Feed posts. Devise evaluation criteria, handle cannibalisation scenarios, and explain cross‑app performance gaps between Instagram and Facebook Stories.
Question 1: How would you evaluate Instagram Stories? (Hint: DAU lift, posting frequency, interaction time)
Question 2: What criteria decide a full launch? (Hint: pilot KPIs, competitor benchmarks)
Question 3: If Stories cannibalise Feed posts, how would you respond? (Hint: offset metrics, incremental revenue)
Question 4: Facebook Stories views are half Instagram’s—why? Design an experiment. (Hint: audience mix, product positioning)
Quick Answer: This question evaluates a data scientist's competency in product analytics, experimentation design, launch metric definition, and causal attribution for feature cannibalization across two social apps, and sits in the Analytics & Experimentation domain for a Data Scientist role.