Instagram Now Lets Users Know How Many Views Their Videos Get

By Jenn Loro - 14 Feb '16 18:30PM

Facebook is moving head-on against Google's YouTube video ad dollars by adding video views to its popular photo-sharing app Instagram.

This makeover should enable Instagram users to know how many people viewed their shared video content. A video is considered viewed after the media content has been watched for at least three seconds just like on Facebook with the changes rolled out weeks from now.

"From seeing the world's moments as they happen to checking out a brand's new shoe line, people are consuming more and more videos every day. In fact, over the last six months, the time people spent watching videos on Instagram increased by more than 40 percent," Instagram wrote in a blog post as quoted by ABC News.

According to TechCrunch, Instagram's 400-million active user base would be an impressive platform for video creators who are exploring alternatives to YouTube and Vine. Adding the standardized video metric could potentially lure companies to buy ads from them.

For a long time, YouTube has been dominating the video ad market with its profit-sharing scheme with creators which proved extremely successful for Google.

"If you want to attract branded content, having a view count is essential...Publishing a view count means that brands are no longer reliant on statistics shared by the video creator and can independently check performance of videos featuring their product and brands," explained Ampere Analysis research director Richard Broughton as mentioned in a report by CNBC.

Currently, marketers have spent around $9.59 billion on video ads this year with 28.5% growth seen in the mobile-focused marketing sector.