Who sees my Instagram posts?
Last Updated: December 05, 2021
Whenever you post a video on Instagram (as a story or a normal post in your feed), you’ll see how many views
that video has. Once someone watches a video for three seconds or more, it will be counted as a view. This
shows not only the number of people who’ve seen the video, but also shows you who (and in a way, when and
how often). The first 50 views are sorted chronologically, but after that it becomes interesting. The 2020
Instagram algorithm works by sorting your story viewers based on how often they interact with your account.
Although this isn’t a well-known feature, Instagram is essentially showing you exactly who your most engaged
followers are.
It can be worth specifically engaging with these followers to have a high chance of starting discussions and
further boosting your posts. Likes and comments for Instagram are a major currency, but so are attention and
loyalty.
Although views of a video don’t relate directly to engagement, sales or profit, the more people see your
videos, the better it will be for your personal or brand account. It’s also one of the easiest ways to get
Instagram followers
. Not only will your social proof be stronger, but your customers will be more familiar
with your brand, and more likely to buy your products in the future.
Table of Contents
Views vs likes on Instagram
Views and likes work in a similar way and provide a similar benefit for your posts and eventually your
brand. Both provide an element of ‘social proof’ or ‘peer-vetting’ which gives people confidence in the
quality and value of your posts. If your post has no Instagram likes, people might think it isn’t valuable.
While likes are a great way to understand who and how many people are engaging directly with your posts, we
can’t see how many people saw an image (even if they didn’t click) or how many times. Views provide a way to
bridge this gap, showing how many unique users saw the video (reach) and how many times the video was seen
(impressions).
You can use this information to understand how many people are seeing your posts (even if they don’t like or
comment), as well as the ratio of reach to impression. If you only track likes on your social media posts,
your understanding of your audience will be very limited. By gathering views and looking into reach and
impressions, you will develop a much fuller perspective.
When looking into the deeper information behind the reach and impressions, you can also discover some of the
fantastic ‘analytics’ features on Instagram. This is the best place to find out who is looking at your
content, where they come from, how they find you and much more info. This page allows you to find the best
time to post for your specific location and niche, which age range is most interested in your content and
the gender distribution of your viewers. The more you know about your followers and customers, the better
you can target your content. It’s vital to know what to post on Instagram to get likes, but it’s just as
important to assess afterwards.
Analytics also allows you to understand your own content in much more depth. If the last five
landscape/cityscape shots received half the likes of posts including people and faces, you can use this data
to guide your future posting schedule. You can even go into more detail, and test different types of posts
to see which type has a greater reach and which gains more impressions. Trial and error is a great method on
Instagram, but you’ll need to make full use of the analytics to see areas to improve and strengthen.
Buying views and what it does for your account
The view counter on videos shows you and the rest of the world that the video is successful, worth watching
and not a waste of time. In the modern world we live in, there is a huge amount of competition for our
attention; buying views for your videos makes sure that no one can ignore or brush them aside.
People tend to watch videos with more views, and sometimes will pass over videos that don’t have enough
views. This ‘social proof’ concept is on our minds when we choose a restaurant and pick the busiest one. If
there’s more people there, it must be better. Our view adding service allows your videos to rise to the top
and get recognized.
If you are looking to develop or establish your brand, you’ll need others to see you as an authority within
your field. High quality video content with plenty of views will certainly help you to achieve this goal. If
you are looking to boost your success by collaboration with known influencers or niche experts, a higher
view count might also help with the first steps and introductions.
As you can imagine, as your video views go up, more people will be attracted to your page and your exposure
and reach will also increase. This positive cycle is a very important part of capitalizing on growth and
maintaining forward movement for your account and brand.
Why video matters for social media
As our technology becomes more powerful and internet connections continue to increase in strength, video is
becoming much more important. Most cellphones not only take great quality photos, but also can produce some
fantastic-looking video too. The accessibility of video and the depth of information that can be conveyed
compared to a photo is highly attractive for many social media users.
Video content is not just fun and attractive; it also has the potential to connect with audiences better
than a simple image. Videos have a special ability to tap into consumer behavior and have a strong impact.
With catchy, emotional or energetic music and clever and creative ideas, marketing videos can be incredibly
powerful for your brand. If you’re asking yourself “how can I get more people to follow me on Instagram?”
then more video could be part of the answer.
Having a video on your landing page can increase trust and positively influence conversions. As video is
much more difficult to manipulate than images, audiences tend to feel more comfortable and more open to
video advertising and content. It’s not just your audience that loves video, the SEO and SEM potential for
video is huge too. Search engines see people spending more time on your pages and will rank your site more
highly. Since Google bought YouTube in 2006, the connection between the two continues to grow stronger and
stronger.
It’s estimated that video engagement is overtaking photos, with a 46 percent increase in photo engagement
and a 53 percent increase in video engagement in the last year. Photos tend to lead to more likes, and
videos tend to attract more commenters. The decision between photo or video is made even harder when we look
at sponsored posts. Sponsored videos normally bring in three times as many comments as photos, and you can
get more detailed analytics with the view count (not just likes and comments).
Many people are put off from making videos because of how complicated and time-consuming it can be. While
the big brands often create intricate and deeply complex advertising videos, every brand can get in on video
in any way they want. From keeping your customers up to date with developments, to creating more colorful
and dynamic videos that show off your business, video can have a strong positive impact on your account and
help you get more views on Instagram. There are also plenty of exciting video editing applications that help
you turn cellphone, action camera and digital camera footage into fun, professional and inspiring content
for your channels.
Important: While video has many benefits over photo content, keep in mind that with longer load times,
slower internet connections and poor accessibility in less developed/rural areas, video can present a
challenge. Uploading videos and viewing them is a much heavier task both for your internet connection as
well as your device, and many viewers won’t have the patience to wait more than a few seconds before moving
on.
What will help me get Instagram followers?
When it’s time to bring your business, brand or personal account online, there’s a few vital pieces to
put
in place before you start posting.
Pick a theme and stick with it - The basics of design and niche are incredibly important to develop before
you begin creating content. Once you’ve settled on a particular topic or theme for your account (or for your
brand), then you need to stick to this as much as possible. This allows your Instagram account to have a
sense of cohesive messaging and shows your customers or followers that you are thoughtful and dedicated. In
terms of how to gain followers on Instagram, it’s vital to develop an audience that knows what to expect
from you.
Use the tools available to you – Instagram provides a huge amount of emojis, music, filters, video options
and text additions. Make use of all of these to keep content fresh, unique and connected to your brand and
industry. There are multiple third-party video editing options out there, as well as an endless stream of
tutorials on advertising, hashtag usage and photo editing.
Keep things fresh – Try to keep you posts interesting, new and original. Don’t simply post a few photos
every week, as your audience will quickly become bored. Ensure that you are using a dynamic mix of video,
photo, polls, questions, jokes, serious topics and branded content to create a fully developed profile and
audience. Real people have nuance and react to the current times, and so should your account.
Hashtags, locations and mentions – When you include relevant hashtags, mention other accounts and location
tag your photos, your exposure and engagement are all likely to be higher. You can also begin to build a
community of people that you can engage with.
Engage with those around you – Wondering how to increase followers on Instagram? You just have to talk to
them. As people comment and like your posts, talk to them, have fun and keep your messaging connected to
your brand or plan. Instagram is a great social tool, and you can’t forget the community aspect that many
people look for in their social media use. Brands that interact with their followers, customers and
stakeholders understand them much better and come off as much more human and real.
Instagram – the rapid international phenomenon
Instagram launched in 2010, and in just two months had over one million users, jumping to 10 million within
a year, and one billion users less than 10 years after its inception. Here are some interesting statistics
about it:
● Instagram has more than one billion Instagram users every month, with 500 million daily ‘Story’ users –
this is up from 430 million users in 2016.
● The most liked post ever (so far) is a picture of a chicken egg on a white background, which racked up
54.6 million views in 2019.
● Most Instagram users (63 percent) log on at least once every day.
● More than 200 million users visit at least one business account every day.
● Instagram users can be found in every country around the world.
● In the age group 18-29, 67 percent of US citizens have an Instagram account.
● The 25-34 demographic is the strongest contingency on Instagram, making up 35 percent of total users.
● The gender demographic is very even – 52 percent female and 48 percent male (compared to a similar 54/46
for Facebook, 38/62 for YouTube, 34/66 for Twitter, and 31/69 for the least balanced Reddit).
● The average daily use for Instagram users is 28 minutes.
● There are 130 million users viewing Instagram shopping products every month.
● Over 87 percent of marketing professionals in the USA will use Instagram for advertising in 2020.