Success Metrics for Facebook's Hashtag Feature: North Star, Inputs and Guardrails

Facebook lets people add hashtags to their posts. If you owned this feature, what goals would you set for it, and how would you know whether it is meeting them? ```hint Start from why people tag A hashtag does something different for the person posting and for the person browsing. Work out what each one wants from a tag before you pick a number to move. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the scope the Facebook app only, or hashtags across Instagram and Threads as well? - Are we setting goals for hashtags as they work today, or for a redesigned version of the feature? - Do hashtags in Groups and in friends-only posts count, where a tag cannot help strangers find the content, or only those on public posts? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - What hashtags do for posters and for viewers on Facebook, tied to the company's mission and to how Facebook differs from apps where hashtags are central - One primary goal with a north-star metric that measures value created, not raw hashtag usage - Supporting metrics for both sides: posters' reach and viewers' discovery - Guardrails for spam, harmful or off-topic content on popular tags, and engagement that is merely moved from elsewhere in the app - How baselines, targets and experiments would show whether the feature earns its place ### Follow-up Questions - Hashtag usage climbs sharply while engagement on tagged posts stays flat. How do you read that, and what do you do? - How would you test whether hashtags create discovery that would not have happened otherwise? - If the goals are not being met, would you keep hashtags on Facebook, change them, or remove them?