What counts as a VIEW⁉️ It depends on the platform that’s measuring. Here’s a breakdown:
1️⃣ TikTok: a view is basically an impression—meaning, the very millisecond ⏱ your video starts to play, it’s counted as a view. In addition, the platform counts repeated views 🔂.
So if the the video loops, for instance, it counts every single time. One caveat, though: watching your own videos won’t be counted.
2️⃣ Instagram Reels apply the same measures as TikTok, only, in Instagram, watching your own Reels actually influences the view count 🧐.
3️⃣ Instagram + IGTV: a view is counted after a video autoplays for 3 seconds (consecutively). What’s more, replays don’t count—i.e., the same viewer watching a video over-and-over (or at least 3-second chunks of it).
4️⃣ Facebook operates by the same rules/measures a Instagram (and IGTV).
5️⃣ LinkedIn: my video says 2-seconds (and so does the rest of the web when you research the topic). However, when I uploaded my last video to LinkedIn, it looks as if they’ve upped it to 3-seconds to match-up with Facebook and Instagram.
6️⃣ YouTube counts a view after 30-seconds of continuous viewing and only when the viewer elects to play the video (no autoplay trickery). What’s more, YouTube implants methods for determining whether replays should or shouldn’t be counted and limits the number or qualified replays eligible to be counted per day. If a video is fewer than 30 seconds in duration, at least 11 seconds must be watched 👀. Craziest part of all: when YouTube videos crossover 301 views, they undergo a manual review process to check the legitimacy of the views. YouTube doesn’t want flukes or fakes affecting its algorithms.
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Bottom line: a “view” isn’t a standardized unit of measurement 📐. As you compare and evaluate the performance of your videos across the web, keep these differences in mind. A 100 views on YouTube, for instance, could be the equivalent of thousands someplace else.
