Do you find tracking and comparing your Instagram likes stressful? Yeah, neither do we. Likes are one of our favorite metrics of audience engagement. However, the powers that be of Instagram say:
“The idea is to try to depressurize Instagram, make it less of a competition, and give people more space to focus on connecting with the people they love and things that inspire them.”
WATCH: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announces that the platform will start hiding likes for US audiences starting next week. It’s the latest step in Instagram’s quest to become the safest place on the internet. https://t.co/BGkMG57rdk #WIRED25 pic.twitter.com/WNTyAPVhaD
— WIRED (@WIRED) November 9, 2019
Here’s What You Can Expect in the US
Not everyone in the US will be affected. The Instagram c-suite has reported that “the change will be expanding to include a small portion of people in the US.” We find this a little hard to believe seeing as how we’ve seen one of our own client’s likes disappear this week. So, “small portion” might be a bit of a downplay, which is not surprising given the amount of backlash Instagram has gotten from US users, specifically celebs and influencers.
Here’s What Folks Are Saying (or should we say, Tweeting?)
I’m not posting on IG after this week cuz they removing the likes. Hmmmm what should I get into now? Think of all the time I’ll have with my new life
— Mrs. Petty (@NICKIMINAJ) November 9, 2019
Damn they really gonna kill Instagram how they did MySpace …. what a time y’all see y’all on the new app ??
— TACOBELLA (@Rico_nastyy) November 10, 2019
In addition, we understand that like counts are important for many creators, and we are actively thinking through ways for creators to communicate value to their partners.
— Instagram (@instagram) November 14, 2019
Here’s How It Works
While likes will be hidden on some accounts from the perspective of users, likes will not be disappearing altogether. Likes will just be hidden on the user’s interface, but users will still be able to view how many likes they’ve received on a post with just a couple taps. This is helpful for marketing pros who still need to deliver this as a metric.
There Are Other Reliable Metrics to Measure Your Success as a Business on Instagram
While we’ll be sad to see likes go, it’s hardly a social media tragedy. We actually put more weight on Reach and Impressions as solid metrics to report.
Reach: The number of unique users that saw your Instagram post or story on any given day.
Impressions: The number of times your content, whether a post or a story, was shown to users.
And as you dive deeper into your Instagram metrics, you see things like:
? What posts resulted in a call to your business.
? What posts gained the most comments.
? What posts encouraged the most users to visit your profile.
? What posts caused viewers to visit your website.
Moral of the story? While we appreciate likes, they really aren’t the end all be all of Instagram metrics. In fact, they don’t hold a lot of weight in comparison to the metrics that get far closer to showing actual conversions. Being liked is great, making a loyal customer is better.
See how Instagram and Facebook stories can maximize user engagement with great shareable content that builds your reach and impressions.