Platform metrics
Plays
Video start count — Instagram’s headline Reels metric. A play is a start, not a finish, so it overstates real viewing.
How INFLU measures it
Paired with watch time and completion rate to separate a clicked-past Reel from one people actually watched.
Live example — Streetwear
#1 @southkidsbrand
SOUTH KIDS
score 72.7 · Growing
Current Streetwear rankings → Streetwear leaderboard
Related terms
Watch time
Cumulative seconds viewers spent on a video — the ranking input Instagram’s recommendation system optimises hardest for.
Completion rate
The percentage of viewers who watch a video to the end — the strongest per-viewer quality signal for short-form content.
Reels
Instagram’s short-video format and its primary discovery surface — the only format that routinely reaches large non-follower audiences.