Reels have become an extremely popular short-form video format on Facebook in recent years. As more people turn to platforms like Facebook to be entertained, informed, and connected, reels have proven to be a versatile and engaging format for creating bite-sized video content.
For any Facebook user looking to utilize reels as part of their social media strategy, it’s important to understand the insights available around reels. When you can see data on views, likes, comments, and more, it enables you to optimize your approach to reels and achieve better performance over time.
Just like with any other type of content, having analytics and metrics is key to understanding what works and what can be improved. The data can point you toward best practices for creating reels that resonate with your target audience.
Monitoring reels analytics also allows you to tailor your efforts around popular content formats. You’ll gain valuable insight into the lengths, effects, sounds, captions, and other elements that get your audience watching, engaging, and sharing your reels.
In a nutshell, taking full advantage of the insights available for Facebook reels is essential for anyone who wants to maximize their success and growth. With the right analytics, you can craft a smart reels strategy on Facebook that helps you meet your overall goals on the platform.
Table of Contents
Can You See Who Watched Your Reels On Facebook?
No, Facebook does not allow you to see exactly who has viewed your reels. When you post a reel on Facebook, it can potentially be seen by any of your followers or others who come across it. However, the social media platform doesn’t provide the names or profiles of individual people who watched your reel to protect user privacy.
Facebook has clear policies against sharing users’ personal information without consent. Revealing the identities of everyone who viewed your reels would go against those privacy safeguards. People expect their browsing activity across Facebook to remain anonymous unless they actively engage with a post.
So while you can access overall view counts and demographics for your reels, Facebook will not show you data on individual viewership. The reach and views come from an aggregated, anonymized pool of users. If you’re hoping to see exactly who has watched your reels content, that data is unavailable due to privacy reasons. Focus instead on creating compelling reels that resonate with your target audience and boost your overall viewing metrics.
Accessing Reels Insights
Facebook provides metrics and data on the performance of your reels through two main tools – Facebook Business Suite and Creator Studio.
To view insights on your reels through Facebook Business Suite:
- Go to the “Content” section
- Select “Reels” on the left sidebar
- Here you’ll see data on your individual reels as well as aggregated metrics
The key metrics available include:
- Total plays
- Average watch time
- Likes, comments, shares
- Audience demographics
- Traffic sources
Creator Studio also has a dedicated “Reels Insights” section under the “Content” tab. This provides additional data focused specifically on reels.
Key metrics in Creator Studio include:
- Follower plays, non-follower plays
- Exits, progression rate
- Interactions
- Audience retention
- Traffic sources
So in summary, access reels insights using Facebook Business Suite for a broad overview of performance, and Creator Studio for more detailed reels-focused metrics. Both tools provide valuable data to optimize your reels strategy.
Plays
The Plays metrics show you how many times your reel has been viewed, as well as the average percentage watched. This helps you understand how engaging your content is for viewers.
The total number of plays indicates the overall reach of your reel. More plays signal that the reel is resonating with viewers and being shown to a wider audience by the Facebook algorithm. Pay attention to any spikes or drops in the number of plays.
The average percentage watched metric shows what portion of your reel viewers watched before scrolling away. A higher percentage indicates you held viewer attention throughout the clip. An average percentage watched below 50% suggests the content may not be compelling or well-paced.
Aim to create captivating reels that keep the average percentage watched above 70-80%. Analyze the reels with the highest percentage watched to identify what is working. You may need to shorten the length, improve editing pace and flow, or feature more intriguing visuals in the beginning to hook viewers.
Monitoring your total plays and average percentage watched will reveal how engaging your reels are. Use these metrics to refine your video strategy and improve viewer retention.
Likes, Comments, Shares
Understanding how much engagement your Facebook reels receive is crucial for measuring their performance. The key metrics here are:
Total Reactions – This shows the total number of likes, loves, cares, hahas, wows, sads, and angries your reel has received. A higher number indicates more engagement.
Comments – The total comments on your reel is another engagement metric. Relevant and interesting comments can help encourage more feedback.
Shares – When people share your reel to their own profile or friends, this increases distribution and reach. More shares signal compelling, sharable content.
Engagement Rate – Divide total reactions by total views and multiply by 100 to get the engagement rate percentage. An engagement rate above 10% is considered high. Benchmark your reels over time to improve.
Monitoring your reels’ likes, comments, shares, and engagement rates will reveal how well your content resonates with viewers. Strive for quality over quantity by encouraging meaningful reactions and discussion with each reel.
Audience Demographics
Viewing the audience demographics for your Reels gives you insight into who your content is resonating with. This can help you optimize both your content and ad targeting.
When you view the audience section in Reels insights, you’ll see data broken down by age, gender, and location.
Age
The age breakdown shows the percentage of views that came from different age groups, like 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc. This allows you to see which ages are engaging most with your Reels.
If your content is skewed heavily towards certain age groups, you may want to adjust your messaging or trends to attract other demographics.
Gender
The gender breakdown shows the percentage of views from women, men and people of unspecified genders.
Seeing the gender balance of your audience can inspire the creation of content tailored to certain groups.
Location
The location map and data shows the countries and cities where your Reels are being viewed. You can see if your audience is concentrated in one region or spread out across the globe.
Location info is especially useful for guiding ad targeting. You can focus spend on locations that are already engaging, or expand to new areas.
Getting demographic intel helps create content and run ads suited to those your reels resonate with. Monitor the data to see how your audience changes over time
Traffic Sources
Understanding where your views are coming from can help you promote your Reels more effectively. The Traffic Sources section in Reels Insights shows you:
- How many views came from the Facebook feed, user profiles, Reels recommendations, Groups, and other places on Facebook
- The number of views generated through shares, including shares to Stories
- External traffic from links, embeds, and shares outside of Facebook
Analyzing your top traffic sources reveals opportunities to expand reach. For example, if most views come directly from your profile, try sharing Reels to Groups and leveraging recommendations more. If external shares drive significant traffic, focus on creating catchy and engaging Reels that fans want to share.
Promoting Reels in high-traffic areas like Stories and encouraging shares can help increase overall viewership. Similarly, monitoring traffic sources over time gives insight into which efforts successfully expanded your reach. As you test different promotion strategies, check if they move the needle on key traffic channels.
Saves and Reshares
One helpful metric available in Facebook Reels insights is the number of times viewers have saved or reshared your reels. This can give you a good indicator of how compelling and shareable your video content is.
When users save a reel, it gets added to their saved section so they can easily watch it again later. Resharing means they shared the reel either on their own profile or to a friend. Both actions show that viewers found your reel interesting and valuable enough that they wanted to hang onto it or pass it along.
Seeing higher numbers of saves and reshares is a positive signal that you created quality content that resonated with your target audience. The more people save and share your reels, the more reach and engagement your videos are likely to receive.
Aim to create reels that viewers not only watch, but also feel inclined to save and reshare afterwards. Catchy audio, interesting effects, entertaining concepts, inspirational messages, and other creative elements can help make your reels more share-worthy.
Monitor your saves and reshares over time to see how they correlate to your best performing reels. This can help you identify what your audience responds to so you can refine your reels strategy going forward.
Optimize Video Length
Facebook recommends keeping reels between 15 to 60 seconds long. Reels that are shorter than 15 seconds may not provide enough time to deliver a compelling message or story. However, reels longer than 60 seconds run the risk of losing viewer’s attention or lead to lower completion rates.
When just starting out with Facebook reels its a good idea to test different video durations to see what resonates best with your audience. For example, you may find viewers are more likely to watch your 30 second recipe reels to the end versus 1 minute tutorials. Or quick 5 second comedy skits could grab attention better than 15 second clips.
Analyze the retention graph in your reels insights to identify the optimal length that results in high completion rates. You can then refine the duration of future reels based on these learnings. Remember, every audience and niche is different, so take time to experiment to discover the ideal time span to tell your story and keep viewers engaged from start to finish.
Leverage Trends
One of the best ways to increase views and engagement on your Facebook reels is to leverage popular trends on the platform. Using music, effects, filters and challenges that are trending can help more viewers discover and engage with your reels.
Some tips for leveraging trends:
- Use trending audios and songs in your reels. Look at which music is going viral and incorporate it into your video. The audio from trending reels will be suggested when you create a new reel.
- Take advantage of popular AR effects and filters. Browse the effects catalogue and see which ones are gaining traction. Apply those to your reels to make them more appealing.
- Create reels based on viral challenges. When dance challenges, outfit change transitions and other formats trend, make your own version by putting your unique spin on it.
- Film reaction and duet reels of top content. Duetting or reacting to trending reels from top creators is a great way to expand your reach.
By staying on top of the latest viral trends on Facebook reels, you can make content that feels fresh, current, and exciting for viewers. This will naturally drive more engagement and visibility for your reels.
Key Takeaways
Facebook Reels provide a fun and engaging way to create and share short videos on the platform. While you can’t see exactly who viewed your reels, you can access valuable insights to monitor and optimize your reels strategy.
Here are some key tips to keep in mind:
- Check metrics like plays, comments, shares and demographics in Facebook Business Suite. Look for trends over time to see what resonates.
- Optimize video length and aspect ratio for the Facebook format. 15-30 seconds tends to work well.
- Make use of popular audio tracks, effects and trends to increase views and engagement. But also experiment to see what performs best for your audience.
- Share reels natively instead of cross-posting for better reach and analytics.
- Engage fans in the comments and use compelling captions to spark more interaction.
- Consider running reels ads to expand your reach and find new potential followers.
Analyzing metrics and continually refining your reels approach is key. With smart testing and optimization, you can build an effective reels strategy on Facebook.
I’m a writer, artist, and designer working in the gaming and tech industries. I have held staff and freelance positions at large publications including Digital Trends, Lifehacker, Popular Science Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, IGN, The Xplore Tech, and others, primarily covering gaming criticism, A/V and mobile tech reviews, and data security advocacy.