What Counts As A Video View?

For all of you has a YouTube account and is doing what they can to create videos that will be viewed by as many people as possible, I’m sure you probably wondered at one point or another what exactly counts as a video view?  More than likely, you probably felt that if somebody clicked on the video, it automatically counted as a view, even if they only stayed on there for a second.

But, apparently, this isn’t the case.  the standard time it takes to count a view as a view on YouTube is ten times higher than that of Facebook or Twitter.

After Marketing Land took survey was taken of all the major social video platforms, there is now some concrete information that shows exactly how long a person has to watch a video in order to have that count as a view.  For both Facebook and Instagram, the minimum amount of time you have to watch a video is three seconds to be considered a view.   For YouTube, a person has to stay on a video for around 30 seconds before they count that as a view.

Keep in mind, that the length of the video itself doesn’t seem to be a factor in whether or not a view is counted as a view or not.  When it comes to display ads though, the metric for determining that a view is a view is much  more simple.  Either you see the ad in full, or you don’t.  But for the actual video, is just a small portion of the video really enough?

According to the Media Rating Council and IAB, a few seconds of a video view is enough, according to a report on Monday.  To these organizations, a video ad is defined as viewable “when at least 50 percent of the ad’s pixels are visible on a screen for at least two consecutive seconds.”

To check out a rundown of how the major players count video views, check out Martin Beck’s article on Marketing Land by following the link I’ve provided for you guys.

Marketing Land: What’s A Video View? On Facebook, Only 3 Seconds Vs. 30 At YouTube