Business Context

Meta is planning next year’s product goals for Facebook Reels. Reels has strong top-of-funnel reach, but leadership believes current reporting overweights consumption and does not clearly capture whether the product is creating durable user value. You are asked to recommend a north star metric and set a realistic goal for the next 12 months.

Current monthly averages are: 620M global Reels viewers, 188M weekly Reels creators, 41B daily Reels plays, 27.4 minutes average daily Reels watch time per daily active viewer, 14.8% 7-day creator retention for new creators, and 36.5% 30-day viewer retention for new viewers. Reels contributes meaningfully to Facebook session time, but there is concern that maximizing raw watch time alone could encourage low-quality or repetitive content and hurt long-term retention.

Requirements

1. Define one primary north star metric for Facebook Reels for the upcoming year and explain why it is better than alternatives such as DAU, total watch time, or number of uploads.
2. Propose a specific 12-month goal for that metric using the baseline data above.
3. Identify 3-5 supporting KPIs and guardrails leadership should monitor alongside the north star metric.
4. Show how you would decompose the north star metric to diagnose movement over time.
5. Explain key trade-offs: viewer engagement vs creator health, short-term consumption vs long-term retention, and global growth vs quality.

Data Available

• reels_view_events: viewer_id, reel_id, impression_time, play_time, watch_seconds, completion_flag, like, share, comment, save, follow_creator
• reels_creation_events: creator_id, reel_id, creation_time, publish_time, audio_type, duration_seconds
• user_retention_daily: user_id, cohort_date, user_type (viewer/creator), retained_d7, retained_d30, country, app_platform
• content_quality_reviews: reel_id, integrity_score, originality_score, policy_violation_flag
• facebook_sessions: user_id, session_date, total_session_minutes, reels_minutes, feed_minutes, notifications_opens