In 2024, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, announced that views on Instagram had become a key metric for the social app, which boasts over 2 billion monthly active users.
Back in 2021, he stated that Instagram was no longer just a square photo-sharing platform but had evolved into one centered around video entertainment. Since then, video has taken precedence.
With that in mind, much of the advice in this guide will focus on video. However, we’ll also explore how integrating a social media feed on your website (where Spotlight comes in) can help drive traffic to your profiles.
Before diving into that, let’s take a closer look at Instagram’s shift toward prioritizing “views” as the most important metric.
Why Instagram views are important
When Instagram unveiled its plans to focus on video entertainment, it also signalled a change in how we measure content performance on the app. In 2024, Mosseri announced that views were set to become the primary metric across all types of Instagram content, including reels, stories, photos, and carousels.
Views are the most important metric for measuring engagement on Instagram because they indicate how many people your content is reaching. Higher view counts often lead to more engagement, making it essential to maximize your reach.
Several factors influence how many views your content gets, and some have been highlighted in recent updates. If you follow Adam Mosseri on Threads or Instagram, you may have heard these insights straight from the Head of Instagram himself:
- Posting frequency: If you’re serious about expanding your reach, consistency is key—you need to post frequently.
- Quality of content: It’s not just about posting multiple times a day or week; the quality of your content matters just as much as the quantity. A strong content calendar should balance both.
- Hooks: The first three seconds of your video are crucial (straight from the boss of Instagram himself). A growing trend is using text overlays or voiceovers to set expectations and grab attention immediately.
Social media content needs to be attention-grabbing from the start. Whether it’s a video, carousel or a photo, you have about three seconds to hook viewers before they scroll past and you miss out on a potential view.
Now that we’ve established why maximizing views is crucial, let’s dive into how to make it happen.
How to get more views on Instagram
There’s no magic formula for creating content on social media that gets a lot of views but there are principles that increase your chances of reaching your target audience. There are a lot of things you can do to maximize the chances of success especially if you’re not a celebrity, or influencer. Here’s what we recommend.
Have a consistent social media posting strategy
This is one of the oldest and most relevant tips in any social media playbook. The accounts that post content regularly tend to reach more accounts as the algorithm pushed their posts frequently. Frequent posting means more chances of you publishing a post, story, or reel that goes viral and gets a lot of views.
Depending on your niche, the size of your team, and your ability to create content that either educates, inspires or entertain, you should post every day or multiple times in a week. Scan through trending posts on Instagram to see what resonates with your target audience and get inspiration from them. Use a mix of content formats, so you don’t burn out after the first few weeks of posting.
Optimize for Instagram engagement
The reality of our digital world is that we have shorter attention spans when it comes to social media. Users often decide whether to watch a video or not in a matter of seconds, and they do the same for other types of content.
Optimizing for engagement is important if you want to encourage interaction. For example, if you want to publish a reel, make sure it includes a hook with your message within those first few seconds. The hook can be anything that keeps you watching, from Calls to Action (CTA) to something funny:
With CTAs, you can ask your followers to like, comment or save posts and share content with their friends. When your audience engages with your content, it’s a strong signal for Instagram’s algorithm to drive more views your way when you publish new content.
Leverage Instagram video popularity
Like it or not, Reels rule Instagram (for now). Reels and stories are the most popular content formats on the platform because they get the most views and, therefore, engagement.
Reels also get more views because Instagram explicitly favors them on the Explore page. If you check your Explore page in the app now, you’ll likely see that reels outnumber everything else:
Since the algorithm tips the scales toward video content, it makes sense to take advantage of it. Whenever possible, publish a reel instead of a regular post, and consider sharing stories when you have the time for it.
Use relevant social media hashtags & geotags
If you post content on Instagram, you need to get familiar with hashtags. While the jury is still out on how important they are in enhancing engagement, they’re extremely useful for promoting your content outside Instagram’s native app – for example, on your website. So look for popular options in your niche and use those hashtags in your captions.
As a plus, create hashtag feed of your trending or educational content and embed it on your website with a tool like Spotlight to drive further engagement for your Instagram posts.
Geotags are a type of hashtag that focuses on locations. For example, #newyork or #malta are geotags. Posts with location tags tend to get more engagement on average (and views, of course).
Before you publish anything on Instagram, take a few minutes to see what hashtags you can add to the content. If you have the time, make a list of popular hashtags in your niche and location, since you’re bound to use them often.
Collaborate with Instagram creators and leverage user-generated content
A smart way to get more views on your Instagram content is to partner with other creators. These partnerships can come in many ways, from sponsored posts to promoting each other’s accounts or creating shared content.
This can be easy depending on your niche. If there are a lot of creators in your brand’s niche, it shouldn’t be hard to find someone happy to partner with your business to promote it. The larger the creator’s audience and the more overlap there is with yours, the more chances of you getting higher views.
Leveraging User-Generated Content (UGC) also involves a collaborative effort, but with your audience. It’s an amazing way to get content for your brand and expand its reach.
You may have seen popular brands, like KFC, asking their followers to share content about their experiences and to use a specific hashtag:
That’s an example of a brand asking for UGC. When users post that content, it’ll reach people outside of your direct sphere of followers. That can mean a lot of views if your followers have an incentive to submit UGC (like discounts or participating in a contest).
Embed an Instagram feed on your website
Embedding an Instagram feed on your website can be a great way to increase engagement. People love Instagram content and when they see it on a website, they’re likely to want to interact with it.
Here’s how a regular Instagram post can look like when someone opens it on your website.
If you use WordPress website, Spotlight makes it easy to set up custom Instagram feeds for your website. You can set up feeds showing posts and content from a single account or multiple ones, or even a hashtag feed (available with Pro licenses).
Here’s a quick look at the feed options available in Spotlight.
Spotlight helps take care of the technical aspect of setting up Instagram feeds in WordPress. If you want to make sure that visitors interact with the feed and get you more views, you’ll also want to:
- Feature high-performing posts. Spotlight gives you full control over what Instagram content to show in your feed. That means you’re free to highlight the content that is already performing well on Instagram. Filter the low-performing costs and you should get more views on your site.
- Highlight video thumbnails. Video content isn’t only popular on Instagram. A lot of users will want to click on Instagram videos they see on your site, at least if they can recognize that it’s video content. Spotlight highlights video content with a video icon that makes it clear you should click on the post.
- Showcase timely & trending posts. If your brand is running a sale or a contest on social media, you’ll want to highlight that on a feed on your website. Likewise, if Valentine’s Day is around the corner, you may want to post about it.
- Encourage interactions on the site. Spotlight gives you the option of adding custom CTAs to posts in the custom feeds you create. You can use these CTAs to encourage visitors to interact with the content or convert in some other way.
There’s a lot that you can do with Spotlight, so if you haven’t tried out the plugin yet, check out the free version. Set up one or more Instagram feeds to test it on your website and, if you need access to more premium features, like hashtag, tagged or shoppable feeds sign up for a license.
Measuring success & planning for the future
Instagram gives you access to analytics that let you see how well your content performs. You can see how many views, likes, shares, saves, and other kinds of interactions you’re getting too.
Over time, you will probably start to notice patterns in what works and what doesn’t for your audience. That kind of insight is only possible if you measure successful content by looking at analytics.
This tip doesn’t only apply to Instagram content. You should always look at the analytics data and see what it tells you. The numbers will show you what kind of content gets the most views and that information can help you plan a future content strategy.
Conclusion
If your Instagram content is getting a lot of views, you’re doing something right. Keep it up and, if possible, publish content every day so you can get even more views for your brand.
If, on the other hand, you’re struggling to get views on your Instagram posts, don’t worry. It’s something most new accounts go through and you can start getting more views by posting consistently, using hashtags properly, leveraging Instagram reels and stories, and more.
Having an amazing Instagram feed is great, but not if you can’t show it off on your website. Try Spotlight today and start experimenting with creating custom Instagram feeds for your website!
