Instagram Makes ‘Views’ The Primary Metric for Photos
Instagram is making “views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos, and carousels.
On Wednesday, Instagram announced that it is changing its analytics to make views the primary metric across all of the formats for the content.
“Historically we’ve shown different metrics for Reels vs. other posts, but we want to evolve this so it’s easier to understand how your content is doing regardless of the format,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri writes in a post about the update.
“Reel Plays” will be relabeled as Views. Meanwhile, views will also become the primary metric for photos, carousels, and Stories.
Views will measure the number of times a Reel started to play or replay and the number of times a non-Reel appeared on a user’s screen.
Views are More Important than Likes and Followers
Instagram says that it will be introducing Views as the primary metric in the coming weeks and the update will help creators better understand how their content is performing, regardless of format.
While views might be the new primary metric, Mosseri also advised that creators pay attention to “sends per reach” as well. Sends per reach is the rate at which a user sees a piece of content and share it via direct messages (DMs).
Mosseri says that both factors are “probably the most important metrics for anybody trying to understand how their content is doing on Instagram,” he says.
According to Social Media Today, Instagram appears to be encouraging creators to re-focus on reach instead of the traditional metric of followers and likes with content. For months now, Instagram has been working to re-frame how creators prioritize different metrics, in order to shift the focus off of follower counts.
Previously, Instagram’s algorithm was primarily focused around the creators that a user had chosen to follow. But, now an Instagram user’s main feed is largely dominated by content they don’t follow, but that Meta’s AI-driven algorithm has selected for a user. Hence, this may be why views is becoming more important as a metric on Instagram.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
