Meta · Product sense · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

Should Meta Invest in Social Audio Again?

Meta is a technology company that runs large social and messaging platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product sense
User empathy
Strategy
Prioritization
Metrics

The situation

A product leader at Meta asks you to recommend whether the company should make a serious new push into social audio across its social apps. Audio clearly matters to people, but Meta's earlier audio efforts did not become a durable habit, especially when they felt too much like passive, podcast style consumption. At the same time, creators and communities still want lower effort ways to connect than always making polished video, and Meta has strong social graphs, groups, messaging, and sharing surfaces that could help here. Why now: teams are debating next year's roadmap and there is pressure to show where Meta can create a distinctive social experience instead of copying a feature that worked elsewhere. The hard part is that audio competes with feeds, reels, and messaging for limited attention and product surface. You need to decide what user problem is worth solving, where in the journey people get stuck today, and whether Meta has a real advantage in discovery, listening, or sharing. Assume you can use illustrative metrics, but you should stay grounded in what Meta is actually good at.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page product strategy memo.

Your answer must

Identify one primary target user or use case for social audio at Meta, and explain the core job to be done.
Assess what likely went wrong with Meta's earlier audio attempts, and turn those lessons into product principles instead of just saying the idea failed.
Break the experience into discover, listen, and share, and name the main pain points or unmet needs in each step.
Recommend one product direction for Meta, and explain why it fits Meta better than simply copying a competitor or recreating a podcast product.
Define a north star metric, 2 to 4 supporting metrics, and one low risk way to test the idea before a broad rollout.
Call out the biggest tradeoffs or risks, including attention, creator supply, or poor fit with existing user behavior.

Constraints

Your recommendation must fit naturally within Meta's existing social or messaging products, not a brand new standalone company or business model.
Do not rely on exclusive content deals, celebrity partnerships, or large content licensing assumptions.
You cannot justify the idea only by saying a competitor has it, you must explain Meta's unique advantage and why users would adopt it here.
Keep the scope to a mid level PM recommendation for one product area, not a multi year company wide reorg.

Format

Use sections for target user, journey diagnosis, proposal, metrics, and risks.

How Meta actually played it

A product design case about social audio, framed around the failure of Meta's earlier podcast-style attempts. The answer studies how people discover, listen to and share audio and designs for moments of shared listening.

Use a failed prior attempt as input, not something to avoid discussing
Do not copy a competitor feature without asking what your platform can do differently
Break the user journey into discover, listen, share to find pain points

Built from Meta PM Interview: The Social Audio Case by Ajitesh, Tough Tongue AI (PM Interview Prep Weekly).