· By “down”, do we mean creation of messages (activation), engagement, or both?

My assumed answer: engagement

· How are “messages” defined? Is it comments to posts, DMs, or posts themselves?

My assumed answer: DMs

· How is engagement of DMs defined? Is it by number of DMs viewed, created, replied to?

My assumed answer: all of that

· Why messaging is important to LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful”

At the center of connect people is actually having people communicate with each other, so messaging is an integral part of LinkedIn’s business

· At a very high-level, the decline in DM engagement is due to:

Users viewing, replying to, or creating DMs less...and/or

User going to an alternative feature/product

· Timing

If it’s a one-time thing, it most likely a technical glitch

If it’s gradual, we can dig deeper. It could be a suboptimal UX/UI, a new competitor, or some other factor

· Region

If it’s limited to a specific region, it could be due to regulation or a local competitor in the area.

· Other products

Is this just DMs, or is it the entire LinkedIn product that sees this behavior? If the latter, that is a bigger issue and would need to look into engagement of the entire product.

· Platform

Is it just a particular platform (e.g. iOS, Android, etc.)? If so, I’d want to compare engagement drop on each platform against all other platforms. As long as the overall engagement is steady, it could be that users are just switching platforms.

· Competition
 Is competition seeing the same effects? If so, this could probably be a more macro issue (concerns around privacy in messaging).

· Engagement decline is progressive

· Not regional

· No other features affected

· Not platform-specific

· No competitor seeing same decline

· Given my assumed answers, I would still continue to bucket my causes as such:

Users viewing, replying to, or creating DMs less...and/or

User going to an alternative feature/product

· Concerning the first bucket, I’d ask the following questions:

Is there a problem with creation of messages?——If messages couldn’t be created, then that would explain the decrease in engagement. However, I don’t think that would be the case, because the decline would be sudden rather than progressive

Are notifications working properly?——If users aren’t seeing notifications they received a message, they’re a lot less likely to reply to messages. Similar to previous question, if notifications didn’t work, the drop would be steeper rather than progressive

Is there a problem with the UI for viewing and replying of messages?——A suboptimal UI could be an issue as well. However, this would more likely lead to a steep decline rather than progressive

Is there an increase in spam messages?——If there has been more spam messages, that make gradually drive users to interact with messages less. I would look into this further and see if users are increasingly blocking certain accounts or reporting certain messages leading up to the decline in engagement.

· Concerning the second bucket, I’d ask the following questions:

Is there a new feature cannibalizing messaging?

If yes, I’d look into 2 things

What is the proportion of users of the new feature that are also users of messaging?

Of those users that use both, what percentage have exhibited a big decline in their engagement with messaging?

Answering these two questions would help inform whether cannibalization is happening. If so, we can see what value users find in the new feature and possibly incorporate into messaging, or decide to even sunset messaging.

Has a competitor increased their engagement numbers while LinkedIn messaging engagement decreased?

If yes, we can figure out what the competition has done differently and attempt to win back users. Or we can identify holes in their offering and fill those holes to win users back.

· Based on my analysis, the cause may be one or a combo of the following:

Increase in spam messages

New feature cannibalizing

Competitor stealing engagement

· I’d dig deeper with appropriate stakeholders and SMEs to further gain confidence of root cause

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

· By “down”, do we mean creation of messages (activation), engagement, or both?

 My assumed answer: engagement

· How are “messages” defined? Is it comments to posts, DMs, or posts themselves?

My assumed answer: DMs

· How is engagement of DMs defined? Is it by number of DMs viewed, created, replied to?

My assumed answer: all of that

· Why messaging is important to LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful”

At the center of connect people is actually having people communicate with each other, so messaging is an integral part of LinkedIn’s business

· At a very high-level, the decline in DM engagement is due to:

Users viewing, replying to, or creating DMs less...and/or

User going to an alternative feature/product

· Timing

If it’s a one-time thing, it most likely a technical glitch

If it’s gradual, we can dig deeper. It could be a suboptimal UX/UI, a new competitor, or some other factor

· Region

If it’s limited to a specific region, it could be due to regulation or a local competitor in the area.

· Other products

 Is this just DMs, or is it the entire LinkedIn product that sees this behavior? If the latter, that is a bigger issue and would need to look into engagement of the entire product.

· Platform

Is it just a particular platform (e.g. iOS, Android, etc.)? If so, I’d want to compare engagement drop on each platform against all other platforms. As long as the overall engagement is steady, it could be that users are just switching platforms.

· Competition

Is competition seeing the same effects? If so, this could probably be a more macro issue (concerns around privacy in messaging).

· Engagement decline is progressive

· Not regional

· No other features affected

· Not platform-specific

· No competitor seeing same decline

· Given my assumed answers, I would still continue to bucket my causes as such:

 Users viewing, replying to, or creating DMs less...and/or

User going to an alternative feature/product

· Concerning the first bucket, I’d ask the following questions:

Is there a problem with creation of messages?——If messages couldn’t be created, then that would explain the decrease in engagement. However, I don’t think that would be the case, because the decline would be sudden rather than progressive

Are notifications working properly?——If users aren’t seeing notifications they received a message, they’re a lot less likely to reply to messages. Similar to previous question, if notifications didn’t work, the drop would be steeper rather than progressive

Is there a problem with the UI for viewing and replying of messages?——A suboptimal UI could be an issue as well. However, this would more likely lead to a steep decline rather than progressive

 Is there an increase in spam messages?——If there has been more spam messages, that make gradually drive users to interact with messages less. I would look into this further and see if users are increasingly blocking certain accounts or reporting certain messages leading up to the decline in engagement.

· Concerning the second bucket, I’d ask the following questions:

 Is there a new feature cannibalizing messaging?

 If yes, I’d look into 2 things

 What is the proportion of users of the new feature that are also users of messaging?

Of those users that use both, what percentage have exhibited a big decline in their engagement with messaging?

Answering these two questions would help inform whether cannibalization is happening. If so, we can see what value users find in the new feature and possibly incorporate into messaging, or decide to even sunset messaging.

 Has a competitor increased their engagement numbers while LinkedIn messaging engagement decreased?

If yes, we can figure out what the competition has done differently and attempt to win back users. Or we can identify holes in their offering and fill those holes to win users back.

· Based on my analysis, the cause may be one or a combo of the following:

Increase in spam messages

New feature cannibalizing

Competitor stealing engagement

· I’d dig deeper with appropriate stakeholders and SMEs to further gain confidence of root cause