As a business, you know how important it is to have a strong presence on social media, and YouTube is one of the top platforms for brands looking to build their audience. You can use videos to drive brand awareness, grow your following, and even convert viewers into customers.
But how do you measure your success on YouTube? Views are one of the most popular metrics for a video, and are often seen as the “holy grail” metric of youtube. Views are an indication that people have watched your video, and that they found it engaging. This metric is also used to determine whether or not a video can be monetized, and to appear on YouTube’s homepage and trending searches.
So What Counts as a View?
A view is defined as a viewer-initiated intended play of a video for at least 30 consecutive non-consecutive seconds. This includes a video that is played, rewatched, or is repeated in a playlist. However, it does not include repeat views that do not seem natural or are a result of a bot. In order to ensure that views are only counted once, YouTube has a system in place that checks for spammy behavior, and will only verify unique views.
Another reason why you might notice that your video’s view count is different from the count shown on the video watch page or search page is that it takes time for YouTube’s systems to verify and process valid viewing data. This is why it can take 24 to 48 hours for a video’s view count to update after posting. youtube views