📅 March 2025 – Instagram is rolling out significant changes to its measurement metrics, replacing impressions, plays, and video views with a single views metric. This transition takes effect on April 21, 2025, and ListenFirst is updating its platform accordingly to ensure seamless reporting and accurate measurement.
🔄 What’s Changing on Instagram?
Historically, Instagram offered multiple distribution metrics across different content types:
- Impressions – Feed & Stories
- Video Views – 3-second threshold
- Plays – Reels-specific metric
🚀 Moving forward, “Views” will be the universal metric across all Instagram Post Types, Stories, and Ads.
- ✅ Views count the number of times content is displayed or played (minimum 1 millisecond).
- ❌ Replays will no longer be counted separately.
🛠️ How ListenFirst Is Responding
ListenFirst is aligning its platform with these updates to ensure seamless reporting and accurate measurement. Effective April 22, 2025, the following changes will take place:
🔹 1. Impressions & Video Views Will Be Powered by Views
- 📊 Impressions will now be powered by Views
- 🎥 Video Views will return Views data moving forward.
- 📜 Historical Impressions data will still be available maintaining historical organic and paid breakdowns.
- ⚡ No workflow changes are required.
- 🚫 These changes apply only to Instagram and will not affect other platforms.
🔹 2. The “Plays” Metric and Replay Data
- ⏹️ Plays, Initial Plays, and Replays will no longer return data after April 22, 2025.
- 🗄️ Historical data for these metrics will remain accessible. When removal is planned in the future, ListenFirst will provide advance notice before this occurs.
🔹 3. New Reporting Metrics for Views
ListenFirst will introduce new reporting metrics for Instagram Views, available in:
- 📆 Time Window Comparison
- 📊 Data Studio
- 🛠️ ListenFirst API (Brand & Content Level)
📉 Impact on Engagement Rate
- 📢 Instagram’s new engagement rate formula:
(Engagements / Views) × 100 - 📌 Since Views is a broader metric than Impressions, engagement rates may be impacted. The full extent of this effect is unknown, and ListenFirst will continue monitoring and providing insights as more data becomes available.
- 📍 These changes apply only to Instagram.
🔮 Future Platform Updates
- 🔍 Meta may implement a similar change for Facebook; ListenFirst is monitoring updates.
- 📂 Historical data may be converted to Views for better continuity.
- 📅 The transition date may shift based on API updates.
- 📊 If an Organic vs. Paid breakdown for Views becomes available, ListenFirst will explore segmentation options.
✅ What You Need to Do
To prepare for this transition, we recommend:
✔️ Adjust performance benchmarks to reflect the shift from Impressions to Views.
✔️ Update engagement rate expectations for Instagram analytics moving forward.
📢 These changes are Instagram-specific and do not impact Facebook or other platforms.
💡 At ListenFirst, we are committed to helping brands navigate this transition seamlessly, ensuring measurement remains clear, actionable, and aligned with evolving social media standards.
🔄 As we learn more, we will continue to provide updates and outline any changes to historical and current data to ensure transparency and accuracy in reporting.
📩 For further questions or assistance, reach out to your ListenFirst account representative.
📅 March 2025 – Instagram is rolling out significant changes to its measurement metrics, replacing impressions, plays, and video views with a single views metric. This transition takes effect on April 21, 2025, and ListenFirst is updating its platform accordingly to ensure seamless reporting and accurate measurement.
