Instagram Views Metrics
Social media metrics change, constantly, it can be the most hotly contested subject by creators, influencers and brands.
Instagram updated “creators” yesterday that they were shifting to views as their primary aka most important metric (the video below explains this).
Adam Mossari the Head of Instagram shared - ““Views” the primary metric for Reels, Stories, photos and carousels.”
He also clearly references the top new important metrics
Views (Adam Mossari rightly points out there can be multiple views per piece of content, so keep this top of mind)
Sends per reach (how many people are sending your content via DM)
Reach
Core Takeaways To Consider As A Creator, Influencer Or Brand:
Views as standardised metrics are smart for Instagram but may be a little misleading for creators, it will be moving creators and brands to create more compelling (most likely video) content that is built less for public engagement but created for “sends”
Views (count) are a critical metric on Threads too - highly engaged views will likely come next, and high-value views will also be considered by Instagram in the near future (who viewed, from where, how long or how many times)
Engagement will always be important, however, engagement is lowering across the board, reactions have dropped because we live in a constant flow of content (which is too much for most of us) - engagement in public and private via sends will be critical in working out away from watch time what is
Finsta’s (private friend accounts) and sinsta’s (meme-created accounts) have sent content via DM for a long time, this will likely see many more of these accounts created - a core internal Instagram metric
Instagram have openly talked about its creation problem, but many aren’t creating (pareto law aka the 80/20 law is likely at play here - 80% viewers, 20% creators) this is a way to see curation and potentially create playlists
Brands and creators - When creating content what you are creating, why you are creating this piece of content, who will be consuming and how it will prompt a share (in DM) - this will lead to smaller accounts with more influence and reach
Follower counts will likely drop, many don’t need to follow creators and brands anymore and rely on other signals to power your FYP. Inbox shares and any comments connected to shares will enable Instagram to add more juice into certain videos, creators and the content they create
Context of the share will be important, understanding why the content was shared, how it was viewed, the reaction and interaction around that content will be critical for Instagram to improve their product and beat out competitors like TikTok.
With an unique ability to improve Threads and potentially improve WhatsApp products from this learning.
My long-term view is Instagram is pushing users to create private groups (as this was naturally happening by users, even before the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram - these are core reasons why Meta invested so heavily) and networks of sends.
Private becomes the default and the culture of these apps, an important however here is - Instagram can build their new private graph (working out who and how people are connected) to change content consumption habits away from one feed into an inbox of content curated by friends, family and creators (sorry brands it will be highly unlikely you are included in this).