Instagram Product Design: Build a Hashtag Feature That Boosts User Engagement

You are a product manager on Instagram. Design a feature built around hashtags and explain how you would make hashtags something people genuinely want to engage with. ```hint Pick whose engagement Hashtags serve two groups: people who add them to their posts and people who tap them to browse. Decide which group's engagement you are designing for before listing features, because their frustrations are very different. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should "engaging" mean more people tapping and browsing hashtags, more creators tagging their posts, or more interaction once someone lands on a hashtag page? - Which surfaces are in scope: hashtag pages reached from captions and search, Explore, Reels, or Stories? - Can people still follow a hashtag today, and should the design build on that or replace it? - Is hashtag engagement the end goal, or should it serve a broader Instagram goal such as time spent, creator reach or ad relevance? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A precise definition of hashtag engagement tied to Instagram's goals, and a chosen segment (creators, browsers, interest communities) with the reasoning - Pain points in today's hashtag experience, ranked by how often they occur and how much they hurt - Several feature ideas compared on impact and effort, with one MVP described concretely enough to build - Success metrics with guardrails against spam, tag stuffing and time simply moving out of Explore or Reels - Risks such as off-topic or harmful content on hashtag pages and thin content on niche tags ### Follow-up Questions - Your feature raises hashtag page visits, but total time in Instagram stays flat. Is that a win, and how would you find out where the time came from? - Spammers start adding trending hashtags to unrelated posts to ride your new surface. How do you protect the experience without hurting honest creators? - How would you test the MVP fairly when niche tags have far less content than popular ones?