Meta has unified content metrics across Instagram and Facebook, making views the new standard. Here’s what this means for influencer campaigns, KPIs, and private sharing trends.
Meta has rolled out a major update to how content performance is measured on Facebook and Instagram — and influencer marketers need to take note.
Where once creators and marketers had multiple metrics across different formats to take into account, as of April 2025, impressions and plays have been downgraded and renamed views.
Whether you're a brand, creator, or strategist, this move could impact how you plan, execute, and measure the success of your influencer campaigns. So what exactly has changed? And what should you do about it?
Let’s break it down.
Meta has deprecated format-specific metrics like impressions and plays in favour of a unified “views” metric across all content types. This includes Reels, videos, stories, carousels, photos, and lives on both Facebook and Instagram.
The move to views as the primary performance metric for content aligns with the broader shift across social media platforms that sees content driven to feeds by the algorithm. More than 50% of what people see in their Instagram feeds is AI recommended, according to Meta.
In this way, renaming impressions and plays as views also aligns Meta platforms with TikTok, which has long used views — the number of times a video appears in feeds — as its primary performance metric.
Meta now counts a view for Reels and videos each time a video starts playing in a feed. This includes replays and is regardless of how long a video is actually watched.
For Reels, what was once counted as a play has been renamed a view.
For non-video content like photos, carousels, and stories, a view is counted every time the content appears on a user’s screen — including multiple appearances in the same feed.
It’s important to remember that a view is different from reach, which counts unique users only.
Metrics like accounts reached, accounts engaged and interactions will still be available to creators to help determine performance on Instagram.
Meta’s update to a unified views metric reflects a deeper shift in how users engage with content and how its platforms reward that engagement.
The change from impressions to views aims to simplify content performance tracking across formats and platforms. As Meta continues to prioritise Reels and AI-driven content recommendations, the change to views is a boon for brands and creators operating multi-format and/or multi-platform strategies.
From now on, it should be easier to compare content performance across both Facebook and Instagram, and across TikTok and YouTube, offering creators and marketers new insights into what appeals to different audiences.
Analysts say the change should also encourage a stronger focus on content quality and driving engagement like repeat views, likes, comments, shares/sends, saves.
Indeed, Instagram boss Adam Mosessri notes that from here on out, creators’ key performance metrics should be views, reach and sends.
“If you’re trying to figure out how your content is doing, what you should be doing is look at sends per reach,” Mosessri says.
The focus on sends per reach underscores a shift toward private, meaningful interactions, and positions views not as a vanity metric, but as a gateway to deeper engagement.
Early last year, Meta revealed that people reshare Reels over 3.5 billion times a day across its platforms— making private sharing one of the primary interaction methods on Instagram.
“The biggest opportunity going forward is unifying our recommendations systems across Reels and other types of video,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors at the time. “That will help people discover the best content across our systems no matter what format it’s in.”
Since then, Meta has doubled down on its sends and shares, developing features like Blend, a shared Reels feed curated within chat threads. Shares — especially in DMs — have been elevated as a top engagement signal in its ranking algorithm.
In this new model, success is less about exposure and more about sparking action:
Campaign performance should now be tracked using views instead of impressions or plays. Brands should also think about updating internal KPIs, dashboards, and client reports accordingly.
Expect to see higher view counts than previous impressions due to repeat viewings being counted multiple times — this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.
Your monthly dose of exclusive insights, strategies and trends shaping the creator economy. For insiders, by insiders.
.png)
%20(2).webp)
