Beyond Likes: Measuring the Real ROI of Social Media in 2025
For years since its inception, social media success was measured by likes and follower growth. While these offer a glimpse of brand affinity in-the-moment, they fail to provide actionable insights towards evolving brand equity.
Think about it like this: 3K likes look great, but what does it mean for the brand in the long-run? Likes and shares reflect engagement but don’t give a holistic picture of brand awareness.
After all, social media is not just about an online presence, but also about converting a ‘fan’ to a ‘customer’.
Today, success hinges on a deeper understanding of audience behavior and the impact of social media on key business objectives.
Meta moves from Vanity to Value
Likes, followers, and impressions can give an approximate active audience size, but they fail to tell the full story of campaign effectiveness. In 2025, with a focus has shifted towards actionable metrics, with Meta introducing ’Views’.
What do ‘Views’ highlight
Views measures the number of times any content appears on a person’s screen, including repeat views.
So for example, a person viewing a photo three separate times in the same day would count as three Views for that photo instead of one Impression. This means one may notice that Views are higher than the previous impression counts.
Previous metrics vs Views
Stories, photo or text posts: “Views” have replaced “Impressions”.
For reels, it’s the same as what was previously labeled as ‘Plays’—every time a Reel starts to play or replay, it’s counted as a View.
This is applicable across the board, whether it’s a quick glance at a photo, a swipe through a Carousel, or a replay of a Story.
Spotlight on ‘Why Views?’
This update is a part of a broader effort by Instagram to enhance reach, and consequently engagement—regardless of follower count.
Let’s focus on a simple observation – A single user can contribute multiple views to a piece of content.
This prioritizes raw exposure, making it easier for brands to showcase awareness campaigns. This way, even the content with lower interactions but high visibility can deliver significant value in raising awareness.
Additionally, views act as a uniform metric irrespective of its format – by providing a clear and consistent way to assess how many people have seen your content.
And given the rise of video content, it makes sense to make views the focus metric.
The true weighting of ‘views’
Critics note that views alone can be misleading without context, like engagement quality or why content is being shown to users.
Since Meta counts multiple exposures from the same user as separate views, advertisers need to further track whether increased view counts lead to clicks, conversions or engagement.
A creator with 45K Views but only 35 Likes might suddenly look more attractive to brands than someone with 8K Views but 350 Likes.
Views helms a subtle shift from quality to quantity, and it could change how creators are evaluated and paid.
The counterbalance
To get meaningful and relevant results, creators and brands would need a strong engagement rate to balance the view count.
Social media in 2025
The real ROI of social media lies in the ability to forge connections, tell meaningful stories, and drive impactful results.
With Views now showing a refined picture of truly how many screens the content has reached – content creators get a precise measure of exactly how many users have viewed the content.
By moving beyond likes and adopting a data-driven approach, brands and creators will find it easier to create relevant content.
Because higher the views, greater the significance of the data being presented to the consumers. Now that awareness is no longer dependent on the content’s engagement rate, social media metrics will paint a better and more accurate picture of the brand’s awareness.