I have no idea where this request came from, but here we have it: views will now be added for videos on Instagram. Starting this week, view counts will appear below videos instead of likes, which we have been seeing for years. The shift will likely happen within the week for most users and be a change of pace for what we usually see on the platform.
Whether you are one to post a lot of videos or not, this will change the game for tracking views and interaction on the social network. They will replace likes with view counts, and if you want to see the actual like count, you must tap "views" to see them. This is pretty amazing for all those wanting to get into video or who already post more video than photography. I feel this feature would be very welcome on images as well as a second way to track engagement. If the option to see how many people glanced past your photo vs. liking or commenting, would you take it? I certainly would!
The official word comes from Instagram in a recent post on their page below:
What do you think? Will this help you with tracking and showing analytics for videos, similar to YouTube and Vimeo? Does this change your opinion on using Instagram as a viable place to post video content rather than just photos? Let me know in the comments below; I would love to hear your opinion.
I'm not sure this means more than actual likes. I view many videos on Instagram and I only like a handful of them. this might be a way to level the playing field for popular and unpopular content.
In a way I feel like this makes content tracking less useful because anyone can watch something but "likes" count how much admiration the content gets.
Measuring success by just view counts is like assuming because some girl glanced at you in class means she's into you and things are getting serious. She hasn't even expressed if she "likes" you.
It is active already at least on android! I'm not sure I like it yet....
Wow this is really big for Instagram. I'm really instrested to see how this turns out. I have Always felt like videos have less engagement the photos. Maybe this will change that in some way.
I'm not quite sure it matters. Instagram posts can't go viral like they do on facebook or other social media platforms. I don't see a legit reason to introduce this new feature. After viewing some of my friend's videos, I found it hard to see how many likes they had. (Way less engagement than photos)
I don't care for it. I have far more likes on them than views so I don't know what exactly it's accomplishing.
You can actually get views added to your video here: http://mohrpublicitycart.com/shop/add-instagram-followers/
They will promote it and get it seen by a lot more people. Called Mohr Publicity
Actually this new feature of swapping views for likes follows incorrect logic, and leads to incorrect count for views, because ultimately Likes should be part of Views count, meaning total number of Views displayed under a video post should be a sum of views and likes. In order for someone to like your post they have to view it first. At the moment views are tracked separately from likes and u can have an instance where a video post was viewed 27 times, but liked 50?! Where as should have been 77 views. I think this is a flaw(bug) in the logic and Instagram has to address it in future release. It is a pretty easy fix (code wise) but be very helpful, since number of Views is what everyone sees first when they look at a video post.
Does it matter? People all are possessed by followers and likes. So, how to get it all? Personally I prefer to use services of zen-promo.com to gain my number of real followers. I just enter my city and program does all instead of me.