Instagram is a very powerful tool for reaching people, whether you use a personal or business account. If you use Instagram to grow your business, whether as a support tool for your existing businesses or as a platform in itself, you need to optimize your performance on the platform, which means collecting data . One of the most important data is the number of people who see your posts and watch your videos.
Instagram is one of the most popular social media sites where users share photos (and increasingly videos) with their followers. Most Instagram users want to know how many people actually watch the videos they post. If you use Instagram professionally or to support your business, collecting these metrics is key to improving your rate of return on the work you put into your Instagram feed. So if you're running a social media marketing campaign and want to know if you want to create more of a particular type of video or want to see who viewed your videos on Instagram, read on.
Checking the base popularity of a video is simple. For example, you can see how popular an Instagram video is by simply checking its views or subscriptions. You can then gauge how well it went with your audience by comparing those views to other videos you've uploaded. Unfortunately, you can't know exactly who watched your videos. Metrics are the math behind social media marketing and whether you run a small business or just want to promote yourself, this data matters.
Number of video views on Instagram
Instagram lets you see how many times your videos are viewed. Under a video, you can see a number that indicates how many times the video has been watched for at least 3 seconds. Video loops don't count: if someone watches your loop 1000 times, you still only get credit for one view. However, you won't find this feature for videos uploaded before November 19, 2015.
How to see how many liked your videos
To see who has liked your videos and how many likes you have, just tap on the number of views under your video. Then you will be able to see how many likes you have followed by a list of people who liked it.
Upload Videos to Instagram Story
You can also download videos as Instagram story. Stories can be viewed by your followers for 24 hours. After that, they will automatically disappear from your stories and be sent to your archive.
To upload a video to your Story, follow these steps:
- Tap the Story icon in the top left corner of your Instagram homepage.
- Then record a video to upload. You can also choose to upload a video from your phone's gallery.
- Add filters and other effects to your video.
- Then tap "Share" to share your story with specific friends or contacts.
The advantage of posting a video via Stories is that you can see who watched your video and the total number of views you have.
Creation of a company profile
To take your Instagram account seriously, you need to convert it to a business profile. This gives you access to a much wider range of analytics tools than a regular account, including Instagram Insights. You can learn how to convert to a business profile here; it's simple and you can do it for free.
Other important measures
While metrics might not seem like the most interesting topic, if you're spending time and money producing good quality content, you need to know if it's right for you or not. If you are running a social media marketing campaign around Instagram or video content, the success of that campaign should be quantifiable. This is where video metrics become relevant.
In this article, I will discuss the photo and video metrics you have access to as part of Instagram Insights. Note that these tools are only available for posts created after you start your business account; it's important to get your business account started early so you can start collecting data as soon as possible.
your name
The number of views is the most basic measure of your video's popularity. Instagram views are recorded after three seconds of viewing and give you a basic view of how good a video is. Different platforms count views in different ways. Instagram and Facebook count 3 seconds as a view while YouTube makes you wait a full 30 seconds before it's counted. As we have seen, this metric is available directly in the Instagram app, just look under the video.
Impressions
Impressions is a simple metric: it's the number of times a given post has been viewed. Multiple views by the same person will increase the impressions metric, so it's not a perfect indicator of a post's popularity.
reach
Reach is the number most people care about when it comes to a post's audience. Reach is the number of unique accounts that have seen a post. If your mom watches your video a hundred times, it will only increase your reach by 1.
follows
Follows is an extremely useful metric for any given post. Follows is the number of people who started following your account after seeing that particular post. This can tell you what types of posts are best for attracting new viewers!
How to find your metric
Finding your metrics is simple. Just tap the post with the photos and videos you're interested in, then select View Stats. This will bring up the information page, where you can see all the data for your post.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I see who watched my video post?
While you can see who viewed your Instagram story, you can't see who viewed anything else. From posts to videos, the only information you have about any other content on the platform is analytics data. This means that there are tools available to show you what content people like the most and which posts reach more people. If you're using a business account, these metrics will help you grow your followers and reach more people.
Can I watch my own videos to increase views?
We have an article here that digs into the subject here and according to our most recent tests, watching your own video for more than three seconds will increase your view count. If you're having trouble with this method (and in the end, it really doesn't help you gain popularity), Instagram allows you to have more than one account. If you really intend to increase the number of views, use one of your other accounts to watch your videos for more than three seconds to increase the number of views.
Have any other suggestions for using Instagram metrics to evaluate your posts? Share with us in the comments below!
We have a lot more information on how to use Instagram. If you're looking for a good starting point, check out our guide on whether or not watching your own videos increases your view count.
