As of June 2026, Instagram has updated how several key content metrics are returned via their APIs. Total Views, Reactions, and Comments now include views and engagements generated from cross‑posted Facebook content, aligning API metrics with what is shown directly on Instagram’s native platform, when the post is cross-posted from Instagram.
What has changed
When an Instagram post is cross‑posted to Facebook or a Facebook post is cross-posted to Instagram, Instagram now aggregates engagement from both platforms into the total metrics reported by their APIs.
Note: These changes apply to Instagram content metrics only.
Instagram Total Views now include Facebook views from cross‑posted content.
Instagram Total Reactions now include Facebook reactions from cross‑posted content.
Instagram Total Comments now include Facebook comments from cross‑posted content.
Instagram Total Engagements/Interactions and Engagement/Interaction Rates will be indirectly impacted since they will have Reactions, Comments, and Views included in the calculation.
This change may result in higher total engagement numbers compared to previous reporting. It ensures consistency with Instagram’s native analytics but requires careful metric selection when analyzing performance, especially when isolating Instagram‑only impact.
Metrics that exclude Facebook cross-posting numbers
To exclude Facebook cross‑posting numbers and focus on total Instagram performance, we recommend relying on the following metrics if you have a Meta ad account connected to Social Media Management (SMM):
Meta Views
Meta Reactions
Meta Comments
Meta Engagements
Meta Engagement Rates
These Meta metrics are calculated as Organic + Paid engagement across all Meta surfaces where the paid content was placed, excluding numbers generated from cross-posted content.
If you do not have a Meta ad account connected to SMM, you can only view organic performance, so you should rely on our Organic metrics:
Organic Views
Organic Reactions
Organic Comments
Organic Engagements
Organic Engagement Rates
Summary of changes
The following metric changes will take place for Instagram content metrics:
Instagram content metric Views, Reactions, and Comments will now include cross-posted Facebook data.
Engagements/Interactions and Engagement/Interaction rates will be indirectly impacted since they will have Reactions, Comments, and Views included in the calculation.
All other Instagram content metrics remain unchanged.
To exclude Facebook cross-posted data from your Instagram metrics:
Use Meta metrics if you have a Meta ad account connected, which provide the full total performance of the organic + paid Instagram metrics across all Meta surfaces.
If you do not have a Meta ad account connected, use Organic metrics for Instagram-only performance.
To match metrics to what displays natively on Instagram (including cross posted and viral distribution of the paid content):
Use Totals metrics: Views, Reactions, Comments.
Please visit our Instagram Content Metrics article for updated definitions of the metrics.