Tech giant Meta just confirmed that its Facebook app was going to follow in the footsteps of Instagram as it switched to Views as its main focus metric.
Meta also provided guidance for brands in terms of how to re-focus on metrics like Views as it can impact their content and what effects it will have in that regard.
To recap, we saw in August how Instagram shared that it’s shifting from variable content metrics like the usual plays and impressions and accounts reached to views count. This would apply to both pictures and videos.
This is directly in alignment with the app’s shift toward more video while making metrics simple. Over time, that did get so complex and provided various data points for Reels, Stories, and whatnot. Now, Facebook plans to use this as a sole focus metric and shift far away from similar measurements.
As per the company, creators will get single distribution metrics for all kinds of content that are calculated throughout the Facebook and Instagram apps. This latest metric that’s dubbed views explains the number of times reels and videos get played or the figure when pictures or text is seen on screens. It aligns with the app’s recent metrics.
This makes things more streamlined and understandable for measuring content performance across different locations. Views would take into account all kinds of consumption behavior. Meta also adds that how views get calculated won’t alter. Therefore, creators should not expect to see major leaps in this metric.
So the question on many people’s minds is what will change? For images, stories, and text content, there won’t be impressions but Views. The latter is defined as the number of times they pop up across screens, how many times they’re repeated, and so on. For instance, people viewing images three different times in a day would count as several Views for the image, instead of this impression. So views could be greater than what was seen with impressions in the past.
Meanwhile, Meta also would like to alter Watch Time and Average Watch Time metrics. This would now get replaced as Minutes Viewed and Average Minutes Viewed. Meta says Watch was the amount of time in total that a user spent while seeing the reel or video, including any replays. It showed how long people saw the content. Meta also adds that other metrics would stay the same.
Such metrics would stay constant in terms of what they’re measuring but seeing them be renamed might make things confusing to some. The next time you see Facebook metrics seem a little bizarre when logging in, this might be the reason why.
The growing number of videos seen on apps across special media is certainly Meta’s main motivating factor for this change. It says the goal is to simplify data so it’s easier to keep track. It might even alter its approach. This could further lead to variable data so we do think it’s worth keeping an eye out for serious shifts.
Read next: Snapchat Empowers Parents with New Snap Map Location Tracking for Teens
Meta also provided guidance for brands in terms of how to re-focus on metrics like Views as it can impact their content and what effects it will have in that regard.
To recap, we saw in August how Instagram shared that it’s shifting from variable content metrics like the usual plays and impressions and accounts reached to views count. This would apply to both pictures and videos.
This is directly in alignment with the app’s shift toward more video while making metrics simple. Over time, that did get so complex and provided various data points for Reels, Stories, and whatnot. Now, Facebook plans to use this as a sole focus metric and shift far away from similar measurements.
As per the company, creators will get single distribution metrics for all kinds of content that are calculated throughout the Facebook and Instagram apps. This latest metric that’s dubbed views explains the number of times reels and videos get played or the figure when pictures or text is seen on screens. It aligns with the app’s recent metrics.
This makes things more streamlined and understandable for measuring content performance across different locations. Views would take into account all kinds of consumption behavior. Meta also adds that how views get calculated won’t alter. Therefore, creators should not expect to see major leaps in this metric.
So the question on many people’s minds is what will change? For images, stories, and text content, there won’t be impressions but Views. The latter is defined as the number of times they pop up across screens, how many times they’re repeated, and so on. For instance, people viewing images three different times in a day would count as several Views for the image, instead of this impression. So views could be greater than what was seen with impressions in the past.
Meanwhile, Meta also would like to alter Watch Time and Average Watch Time metrics. This would now get replaced as Minutes Viewed and Average Minutes Viewed. Meta says Watch was the amount of time in total that a user spent while seeing the reel or video, including any replays. It showed how long people saw the content. Meta also adds that other metrics would stay the same.
Such metrics would stay constant in terms of what they’re measuring but seeing them be renamed might make things confusing to some. The next time you see Facebook metrics seem a little bizarre when logging in, this might be the reason why.
The growing number of videos seen on apps across special media is certainly Meta’s main motivating factor for this change. It says the goal is to simplify data so it’s easier to keep track. It might even alter its approach. This could further lead to variable data so we do think it’s worth keeping an eye out for serious shifts.
Read next: Snapchat Empowers Parents with New Snap Map Location Tracking for Teens
