Instagram is making a big move here. Earlier this week, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced that Instagram will begin to start hiding likes from users in the US as soon as this upcoming week. This change makes users not be able to see how many likes someone's posts have gotten. You do still get to see how many likes your post gets, just not others.
The platform is testing this idea out to ease the mental struggles Instagram may bring on people. They have already tested it out in Canada, Brazil, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. This feature affects two major sides: the mental and the business side.
The mental struggles, especially for the younger generation is serious. We crave to be liked by people and when we get a certain amount of likes we get a sense of validation from the people. The number of likes you get on a post acts as a status bar, with the addition of followers of course. Likes can act as a popularity status at school. The person getting lots of likes in school can be labeled as popular, and then kids start comparing how many likes they receive with other kids in school, just to see how they level up with one another. At such an early age, kids can struggle with the mental issues of their post not reaching a certain amount of likes. Then they feel like they aren't good enough and sometimes even take down their posts to act like it never happened. Social media shouldn't be a place where people should be afraid to posts things, but a place where they can share whatever they want without any fear.
The feature affects the business side of Instagram through brands, influencers, and the platform itself. Social media has been a huge tool for businesses to marketing their products/services, especially with Instagram where users are able to see the products through pictures and videos. To expand their reach, brands will use influencers to market their products to their followers. People have made a living becoming an Instagram influencer and post about brand's products in their feed and stories. So when Instagram takes away the likes feature it ruins how brands measure how their marketing campaigns are doing with each influencer. Which influencer got the most likes, engagements, and views on stories all help to see which influencer performed the best. Additionally, brands won't be able to determine which influencers get the most likes when they are looking for new influencers to use for a campaign. Likes are the bread and butter for influencers and it makes them stand out in the eyes of brands.
What most people might not think is that this move can potentially make more money for Instagram. There might be less use of influencers because they might use a metric to measure, and instead use sponsored ads on Instagram. Brands have been able to use influencers to promote their products and not have to use sponsored ads. I haven't seen too many ads on my account, but we will see if more ads start to pop-up and people get mad about this. If this test comes up positive in any way they feel is right, don't be surprised if followers or maybe even comments get hidden as well. No that would really shake up the social marketing campaigns businesses run.
