Instagram explains how it values ​​watch time and clarifies that it does not penalize long videos.

[bitheerani93]

DSince "Views" were officially proclaimed as Instagram's primary metric in August 2024, content creators have adapted their strategies to boost their results. However, this change has raised questions about how Instagram's algorithm values ​​viewing time .


To answer this question, Adam Mosseri , CEO of whatsapp number list and Threads, has published a new information pill in which he explains that Instagram " doesn't just look at the percentage of videos that have been viewed, but also at the number of seconds ."





A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

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For Instagram, 10 seconds is always 10 seconds.
Now that views are Instagram's most relevant metric , creators on the social network are concerned that if they publish longer videos or Reels, their content will be penalized . Because, for example, if the social network considered that at least 50% of a video must be viewed to give it a positive rating, 50% of a 3-minute video is not the same as 50% of a 10-second video.


This scenario would mean that longer videos would require longer viewing times for their viewership to be equivalent in percentage terms to that of shorter content. However, Mosseri sought to reassure the public by stating that they do not want to penalize longer videos .

Instagram's CEO explained that " if you've watched 10 seconds of a one-minute video, that's the same number of seconds as if it had been 10 seconds of a 10-second video , so you won't be penalized ."

However, we would have liked Mosseri to have provided more information about how Instagram weights watch time, whether there are any key watch time percentage thresholds, and whether achieving certain completion rates (which measure whether your video content has been viewed in its entirety) gives an extra boost to content reach. Although, we can imagine the latter is likely the case.