Instagram’s most important metric surprised everyone
Instagram is undergoing a significant transformation in the way it measures the success of content creators. Starting today, the most important metric on Instagram is “views.”
The Meta-owned platform is moving away from traditional metrics such as follower counts and likes to focus on reach and views as key performance indicators.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has been actively promoting this paradigm shift. According to Mosseri, reach should be the top priority for creators, arguing that it is what really drives growth and engagement on the platform.
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In line with this philosophy, it has been announced that the most important metric on Instagram is views, so the analysis tools have been renewed.
The goal is to highlight “views” as the core metric for each type of content, whether reels, static posts or stories.
To clarify, Instagram is specifically updating:
- Reel views will be renamed to “views.”
- “Views” will become the primary metric for photos, carousels and stories
- In Insights, IG is adding a “Views” icon instead of “Plays” and other metrics.
- This will replace “Accounts Reached,” “Accounts Engaged,” “Interactions,” and “Watch Time.”
- Repeated views of the content will be counted, similar to how reels plays and replays are counted.
10 insights from Instagram’s latest ads
Here are 10 insights from the latest Instagram metrics updates:
- Instagram’s most important metric: Instagram will adopt “views” as the primary metric for measuring the performance of all content, including Reels, Stories, and photos. This change is intended to simplify performance tracking.
- Consistency in Measurement: Unifying views as a metric will allow creators to better understand how their content is performing, regardless of format.
- Focus on reach and views: Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, emphasizes that creators should focus more on reach and views, rather than the number of followers and likes.
- Algorithm Change: More than 50% of the content users see in their feeds now comes from recommendations from Meta’s AI , rather than profiles they follow.
- Metrics Rebranding: Reels Plays will be renamed to Views, and in Insights, the Views icon will replace metrics like Accounts Reached, Accounts Engaged, Interactions, and Watch Time.
- Transparency and Trust: Meta has worked to be more transparent in its metrics, especially after past controversies over inflated view counts on Facebook.
- Importance of Sends per Reach: While views are now the primary metric, Mosseri suggests that creators should also consider additional metrics like sends per reach to get a more complete picture of how their content is performing.
- Increased Emphasis on Suggested Content: Due to algorithm changes, suggested content represents a significant portion of what users see, increasing the importance of optimizing content to appear in more “Discover” feeds.
- Consistency with Other Platforms: This change follows a trend seen on other Meta platforms, such as Threads, which has also started displaying post view counts.
- Opportunity to Stand Out: While the focus on views can be daunting for some, it also represents an opportunity for creators to stand out by focusing on content that truly resonates with their audience.
It’s crucial to remember that whether we like these changes to Instagram or not, our ability to influence them is limited.
As we’ve repeatedly noted in the digital marketing space, social media is essentially “rented land.” We don’t have complete control over these platforms, nor do we own our space on them. Instagram, like other social media, can change its algorithms, policies, and metrics at any time, and we as users and marketers must adapt.
This reality underscores the importance of diversifying our digital strategies and not relying exclusively on a single platform for our marketing and engagement efforts.
