Since launching video on the platform in 2013, we’ve seen businesses use full sight, sound and motion to deepen the stories they share. Companies like Gold’s Gym used Boomerang to make muscles flex, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment ran a Marquee ad showing three videos throughout the day promoting its release of Furious 7 and small business Out of Print ran a stop motion video ad to drive holiday sales.

And we’ve seen our community embrace video just as much. 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.¹

In the coming weeks, we’re rolling out video views on Instagram. As a widely expected industry metric for video, we believe video views are the best measure of viewer intent. And we often hear from our community they’d like to better understand how people are engaging with their videos.

The value of a video ad — whether you’re measuring ad recall, brand awareness or sales — happens quickly and increases as the video plays out. With Nielsen, Facebook found that up to 47% of the value in a video campaign was delivered in the first three seconds, while up to 74% of the value was delivered in the first ten. Every part of a video view — from the initial impression to a complete video view — drives value.

As views roll out, you’ll find them underneath each video post. You can still see likes on videos by tapping views. Adding view counts is the first of many ways you’ll see video on Instagram get better this year.