Today, we're talking about the new way to win on Instagram in 2026.
And if you wanna get more views on your Reels with less effort, it is critical that you understand what Instagram is actually looking for. And once you learn this, you will never look at your reels the same way again. So in this video, I'm gonna break down the six metrics Instagram added to your insights in the exact order they rank them, the healthy benchmarks for each one, and the specific things that you can do to engineer your content for them. Now this is based on Instagram's brand new insights update straight from the platform itself. It is hot off the press, and it's exactly what Instagram is focusing on right now. And if you follow this,
you will start to see your views explode. And if you're new here, I'm Enrico Encarnati. I run social for one of the biggest personal brands in the world and the third largest podcast on the entire planet. I have been engineering content for distribution for over a decade. I've grown my own audience past 300,000 plus followers in my spare time, posting the kind of stuff that I'm about to teach you. Now before we get into it, let me show you exactly what I'm talking about. So right here,
when you go into your reels, Instagram is literally showing you what impacts your views, and it shows the rates that are listed in the order of importance. So we have skip rate, share rate, like rate, save rate, repost rate, and comment rate. Those are the six metrics. Now really quick, you're gonna notice that repost rate and comment rate are the last two, which is kind of interesting because repost just came out from Instagram, and comments being last, we're gonna talk about that in just a second. But by the end of this, you are gonna know exactly what each of these mean and how you can actually move the needle with your content and which ones you need to prioritize. Prioritize. So let's start with number one. Because if you don't even fix the first one, none of the others are going to matter. It's that important. Number one, skip rate. Skip rate is the percentage of people who land on your reel and scroll past the first three seconds. So it's either three seconds in, are they staying, or are they leaving?
And this metric being at the top is super important. Why? Because it's quite literally the gate. Like, that is how they're entering the content.
None of the other five matter if no one is watching past your first three seconds. Now here's a benchmark based on my content that I've worked on plus the thousands and tens of thousands of reels that I have worked on across some of the biggest accounts in the world. If your skip rate is 50 to 60% or even higher, you're typically underperforming.
That hook isn't landing. People are scrolling past the first three seconds. Whatever you did there, it's just not landing for people. If your skip rate is 30 to 40%,
your videos will overperform. So they're gonna do better than how they typically do. That is an elite range, which means whatever you're doing in those first three seconds, it's working. Now here's what I'll also say. If you have a skip rate under 30%,
you might have a banger. This might be a video that quite literally goes viral for you because a lot of people are choosing to stay to watch. Very few people are choosing to skip, so you have a really, really good video. But here's the lesson that I really wanna share with you, and I'm gonna come back to this at the end of the video. Stop getting emotional about your content. Just look at the data. It is telling you that your hook on this video, it needs work. Stop looking for an excuse as to why it didn't work. Oh, the algorithm didn't like my content. No. No. The audience did not like your content. If no one is watching past the first three seconds,
nothing else you make in the video will matter. You might as well have had a black screen. Now let me show you what actually fixing a hook would look like. So let's say, for example, you're in sales, and you have a hook of here's three ways to close deals. Like, that's it's kinda boring.
Instead, I would go with never ever ever say these three words on a sales call if you want to close more deals. Same exact topic.
But now there's a negative frame with it. There's also a specific number, a promise, a level of contrast. The viewer wants to lean in because they they wanna know what the three words are. Again, it's the same content, but way more people want to stick around to hear it. So that leads to the question of how do you engineer your content for a low skip rate? Three things, and you need to be doing all three. Number one, a strong visual hook. This is motion. You can add contrast and expression,
something that catches the eye in quite literally half a second before someone's brain decides to be like, nope. I'm gone. Let's scroll. Number two, you need a strong verbal hook.
State the problem or whatever take you have. Maybe you have a contrarian frame. Maybe you wanna lean more negative. That first sentence needs to be strong. I understand now why rich people would never help us. Did you know there's a mathematical framework that can tell you which job to take? This is twenty four hours, and I wanna show you how much time you actually have left with your family when you work a nine to five. Don't be soft. Assume people aren't going to watch the next three seconds. When it comes to making short form content, it is value per second.
Every single second you are making in the video has one job. Earn the next second. Assume that when this lands on someone's feed, when they are served that piece of content, that's the only opportunity you have to impress them. Respect your audience's time. If you have something that could be a lot stronger in the beginning,
front load it.
Don't bury it. Don't push it off later. Give it to them. Which leads me to the third point. Confirm what they are going to get. This has to be done in the first three seconds.
The viewer should know exactly what they're about to learn, exactly what the setup is, exactly what the rest of the content is because you need to respect their time. Let's talk about how much it costs to run this location. I was at the gym just now listening to an Andy Forsello podcast, and this man said something that made me stop the podcast,
rewind it, listen to it again, go back and screenshot it, and I'm gonna fucking share this with you because this alone is going to change your fucking life. If I handed my 6 figure job, here's how I'd replace it this year. They need to know exactly what they're going to get and if this video is worth their time or not. Get those three right, and your skip rate will start to drop. Number two, share rate. Share rate is sends per reach. So when someone hits the airplane button to send your Reel to a friend in the DM, they drop it in a group chat, they share it on their story, they text it to someone, that is a share.
Share rate is at number two because it is the strongest social proof that a reel can earn. When someone shares your video, they're literally putting their name on it. They're almost saying, this is good enough that I'm associating myself with this. I'm telling my friend, hey. You should watch this. I'm sending this to my team. Hey. You guys need to watch this, and Instagram weighs that heavily because shares
lead to real distribution to people who don't even follow you. It's literally free marketing.
So how do you engineer your content for shares? Well, I have a three prong shareability test that I run every single reel through. Number one, is it tactical? Is it something that the viewer can take away and act on today? And this is key, and I really want you to pay attention to this. When I say tactical that the viewer can act on today, there's this concept called compressing
time. Five years of leading teams compressed into sixty seconds. Here are 16 of my favorite closes. When
they are done watching the piece of content from when they're done watching that reel,
they should be able to immediately,
whether they do it or not, go apply it. Whether that's the next sales call, the next video they make, whatever it is,
they should be able to go do that immediately. You are compressing
the time at which someone can implement what you are giving them. And not only that, when you are giving them something to implement, it also needs to be repeatable.
So when you are giving something that people can act on,
can they also do this over and over again and see the same result? So for example, if you're giving someone a recipe, can they continue to make that recipe and still lose weight because it's a low calorie recipe?
Yes. That is the stuff you want to apply. So it needs to be tactical,
and it needs to be applicable
to where they can do that right after they watch the video. And it needs to be repeatable so they can do it and see the same result over and over and over again.
Number two, is there someone in their life who needs to hear this?
When the viewer is watching, does a specific person come to mind?
Whether it's a friend,
a spouse,
a business partner,
someone who's been struggling with whatever that exact thing is, there's that one person that comes to mind. Make it for them. Number three, is the takeaway valuable enough that they want credit for forwarding it? Meaning,
will they look smart for sending that? Will they look smart for dropping it in the group chat of, yo. This was so good. That was so insightful. They drop it in the Slack channel to their team. They're like, oh my gosh. Thank you for sharing this. They now look smart.
And if you hit even just one of these, you'll get shares. If you hit two of them, you'll double your share rate. And if you hit all three, I guarantee you will see your shares explode. Number three, like rate. This is the section that I want you to pay the most attention to because it's where most creators are completely getting this wrong. Like rate is likes per reach. Based on the thousands of reels that I have engineered,
a like happens at one of three very distinct moments in the video, and each one tells you something different about your content. The first point where I see a lot of likes happening in a video is at the beginning of the video. If someone likes a reel in the first three seconds, there's two things happening. Either they're a super fan, they really like you, and they're gonna like whatever you post no matter what it is. Or your hook landed so hard, it was super strong, you had a good visual, you had a good verbal, you had a good text hook. It was an immediate confirmation of what they were about to get. Maybe you took a hard stance, a contrarian frame, you added some shock value, was provocative, maybe it was negative. Whatever it was, the hook was so good that they liked the video before you even delivered anything. The second point is the middle of the video.
Likes that happen in the middle of the video almost always come from non followers.
Now you might be asking, well, why?
Well, when your real is reaching new audiences,
those people don't know you yet. They don't trust you yet. So even if your hook landed,
they're probably a little skeptical. They're waiting for proof. They're waiting for a reason to literally double tap and hit like, and the way that you give that proof is by watching or the way that they feel that proof is by watching and waiting for whatever value to drop. It needs to be a tactical takeaway, a piece of advice, a frame that they hadn't thought about, uh, some type of information
that once you deliver,
they confirm with a like. That is them saying, okay. You know what? I trust you.
The hook wasn't a bait and switch. I know exactly what I was getting for, and there's actually value here so far. Point number three is at the end of the video. Now end of the video likes are the deepest, in my opinion, trust signal that you can earn, especially with reach to non followers because people are holding out for the entire video before they decide,
was this worth a like for me?
So even if you have a strong hook, a strong middle, and you're delivering, some people are still gonna keep their guard up. They don't wanna commit until does this video close the way that I think it's going to? And when you deliver the takeaway at the end or when you wrap up the video in a really concise way, you finally earn that like, when there's that payoff.
And in my opinion,
those viewers are the most likely
to turn into a follower.
So
how do you engineer your video for like rate? Well, you need to design for all three of those moments.
One hook that gets right in, a piece in the middle where you're delivering a reward.
Right? And then you need to collapse time and give the audience a reward for staying. But the problem is most creators only design for one of these, and it's typically the hook. They're so obsessed with it. Viral hooks. You need these kind of hooks. Right? They burn all their energy on the first three seconds, and they let the rest of the video just absolutely coast, and that's why their like rate is below average. And so when you engineer for all three points,
you will win. Number four, save rate. Save rate is saves per reach. A good friend of mine and former mentor said, we live in a save now,
execute later society.
And he was referring to a post from Dan Coe that,
at the time that I'm filming this, has over
760,000
saves on x. We are in a save epidemic.
People are saving content constantly, whether it's reels, posts, threads, articles, and they're not doing anything
with it. There's so much information overload, but there's no execution.
I hate to break it to you, but I feel like you're doing that right now too. Maybe you even got a folder full of business advice, content strategy, viral hooks, video ideas, sales ideas, etcetera, whatever it is, whatever saved content you have in a folder, you're not doing anything with it. Why is Instagram deprioritizing
saves?
Because people don't come back to it. Be honest with yourself. The saved folder that you have on Instagram, when was the last time you went through it? No wonder why when it comes to what matters for your views, this is one of the lower ones. But here's what I will say, I think there is value to still engineering your content for saves. How do you engineer your content for saves? Well, you still need to create save worthy content, meaning give frameworks, give checklists,
listicles,
step by step guides, recipes, etcetera, whatever it is. Those still earn saves, but you don't want to optimize for saves at the expense of having a really high skip rate or share rate.
Saves, in my opinion, are a bonus.
They're not the goal. Number five, repost rate. Now repost rate is, well, repost per reach. When someone hits the repost button on your video, that puts your reel onto their profile in front of their audience. But here's the interesting thing about reposts. In my opinion, I think they're just passive.
That is the viewer almost saying, I like this enough that I think other people should see this, but you're not committing to it in a way that a collab post would. A collab is you literally choosing to put your name on someone else's content on your home grid permanently,
and it shows up alongside your own content.
But reposts,
well, that goes into a separate repost tab on your profile, and I'm gonna be honest, most viewers are not even clicking into that tab. It's not interesting.
So while I think reposts are a real signal and they're super strong, to me, they're kind of a lower conviction one. It it's real, but it's not as strong as a share or a like. And the engineering tactic here is simple. Don't engineer your content for reposts. If you nail your share rate and your like rate, the repost rate will take care of itself. You can borrow a strategy from back in the day with x, which is after twenty four hours
of your post being live, what you can do is you can repost your own content so that it reappears
on your audience's feed to people who did not interact with it. Now I wouldn't recommend doing this all the time, but I would recommend doing this every other post, and it's something for you to consider if you want to try out. Number six,
comment rate. Comment rate is comments per reach, and it is dead last on Instagram's list. Because what most of comments look like in 2026
are, hey. Just comment the word guide or just type link or it's it's all keyword based so that you can download a freebie or a guide or whatever it is, and then on the back end, there is a ManyChat automation that DMs them a lead magnet when they do that. Typically, the problem that most people aren't aware of is that when you are sending someone something,
the problem is oftentimes you were leading people off the platform.
And one of the worst things that you can do on Instagram is leading people off Instagram does not want people to leave the platform. YouTube,
TikTok, any of these social channels, they want users to stay on the platform. Why? Because they make more money. Well, you are now signaling to the platform, oh, someone is now more gonna be more likely to wanna swipe off. And if they swipe off, they might go somewhere else. They might close out of the app, which means we get less opportunity to show them advertisements.
And the way that you win is by making great content that keeps people on the platform. Because if you can retain audience,
well, the platform will reward you. And I wanna be very clear, I am not saying don't run automations. Automations are super valuable. They work. They are great for lead capture. You need to keep doing them. I use them to get tens of thousands of leads with clients to get hundreds of thousands of leads, but what I am saying is don't engineer your content solely around generating comments. What I'm telling you is that you need to engineer your content for a low skip rate, a high share rate, and like rate first.
Comments are a side effect and a byproduct of good content, not the goal, because that's not what's going to keep people watching longer. And before I wrap, I wanna give you two more things that are in the same insights panel that you really should know about and that you should check. First, the retention chart. This shows you exactly where viewers are dropping off in your reel. And the rule of thumb that I use is you want your average view duration to be 20%
to 30% of your total video length. So for example, if you posted a sixty second reel, you want the average view duration to be between twelve to eighteen seconds. Now if you see your retention curve drop off within the first few seconds and then it just flattens out, well, your audience is not super engaged. But if you do see a retention curve, say, pretty high consistently along the video, well, your audience is engaged, and that is what you want to aim for. And second is views over time. This shows you how a reel is performing over the days and weeks after you post it. And just a quick story. I had a reel where the skip rate was kinda high and the retention was decent,
but in the first twenty four hours,
it was like, in terms of views going up, it was flat. And I was almost like, oh my gosh. What did I do wrong? And and it's funny. I actually reposted this same reel
because it had performed well in the past, and I'm like, oh, let me just repost my content. I appreciate this a lot. I called it Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift strategy where you should be reposting your content every three to four months, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's it's just it's it's not working again. It's just not taking off. It's not it's not gonna it's not gonna do well again. And I'm like, alright. Well, I'm just gonna I'm gonna take it as an L. I'm gonna take it as lesson. But a week later,
it started picking up again.
And by two weeks, it was sitting above the dotted line, meaning above my account's average performance. And so the real lesson that I wanna give you is to be patient. Instagram,
specifically, and Adam Osiris even said this, do not judge your reels in the first twenty four hours. Wait forty eight, seventy two hours to take a look at the insights and the data there. It was over a week before I saw anything. If your skip rate and your retention rate look good, just give it some time. Sometimes it takes a minute for Instagram to figure out who to show it to and figure out who is the right audience.
Here's a takeaway that I really want you to walk away with. Stop getting emotional about your content.
Just look at the data.
Instagram is literally handing you the order of operations
of, hey. This is what matters for you to get views.
So fix what they're telling you. Fix it in the order that they're telling you, and if you start to get emotional about your content, about your reach, about your views, that is the fastest path for you to burn out. Looking at the data is the fastest path for you to grow with your content. Now if you want me to take a look at your reels with you and work through an entire content strategy for Instagram and just look at, hey, what's working, what didn't work, what can we do better, you can sign up to do a ninety minute audit. The link is in the description below. Or otherwise, make sure to subscribe to the channel if you want more content strategy just like this. And if you found this video helpful,
you're gonna really wanna watch this video where I talked about why you are doing Instagram stories wrong and why you should never ever ever add
a link to your Instagram story. So click it, watch it, and I can't wait to see you