Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Instagram has introduced video on the visual social platform almost three years ago. Maybe a number of us hasn’t really considered this until now, but one that that’s been missing these last three years are view counts. There are other social platforms that show off the number of views a video gets, such as Facebook, Vine and YouTube, but the view count is strangely missing from Instagram. But we will not have to worry about that anymore, as Instagram will soon be counting anybody who watches at least three seconds of a video as a view, just like how Facebook does it.
Instagram will begin showing view counts over the “coming weeks,” along with the standard “like” and “comment” counts. Right now, the only data that is available on video content is whether people like the video or have something to say about it. The missing element has been reach.
One possible reason to include video view count is to possibly appeal to advertisers, as a view is a major metric that advertisers focus on when it comes to video ads. By adding view counts, this could be even more appealing to these particular folks.
The view counts are said to be rolling out over the coming weeks. If you want to check out more information on it, check out the official Instagram blog post.