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Abadesi

Will you still post on Instagram if they remove likes?

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Instagram announced that this week they will start removing likes displayed on certain accounts, prompting stars like Nikki Minaj to say they will no longer post on the platform if likes are removed (article here). How would the change impact your relationship with the app?

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Abadesi
I feel this is a worthwhile experiment since studies have shown how some teenagers are constantly refreshing their notifications to check for engagement and experiencing anxiety. That said, since some people rely on Instagram engagement to make their living I suspect there will be backlash.
Yusuf Giftworks
@abadesi I think even adults are falling into the same anxiety trap. However, engagement indicators like 'likes', 'retweets', 'shares', 'claps', 'upvotes' etc are an integral part of any social/community websites. Take Product Hunt for example, without upvotes, how are we supposed to know which product is the best? And I believe that 99% of us who launched a product experience anxiety during the first few hours. We'd refresh our launch page, check stats again and again to see if people upvoted our product. I think the root cause here is not the engagement indicators per se, it is the individual itself. How can we educate ourselves to remain in control of our emotions without falling into anxiety? I think this is the question we should try to address, not just removing 'likes'.
Abadesi
@qabil really interesting points raised and I hear you. One single thing won't fix the issues that come with excessive social media usage.
Abadesi
@stevoutlaw folks are telling me it can be changed - honestly haven't gone into the app to try myself yet!
Lanre Akinyemi
Canada was one of the testing ground for this and at first it was a bit of a shocker but eventually it reduced the 'peer pressure' effect of liking already popular photos. When I went overseas and saw the likes again, I did not like it🤷🏿‍♂️
Abadesi
@lanre_akinyemi so you got used to having no likes on Instagram and prefer it that way?
Lanre Akinyemi
@abadesi Yup for sure - now I prefer not to see them anymore!
Karl Schmidt
@lanre_akinyemi Same here, been gone for a while in Canada, don't miss em :)
Abadesi
@lanre_akinyemi @kschmidtdev has the change affected your behaviour on the app at all?
Karl Schmidt
@lanre_akinyemi @abadesi It's hard to tell, I haven't been posting as much (but I don't think it is related to this change) - reading-wise, about the same?
Artem Galenko
It will be the dusk of vanity fair era
Ryan Hoover
The funny thing about this that no one seems to be talking about (afaik): Removing public like counts may have a big impact on the influencer marketing ecosystem (and tools like SocialBlade). With this change, only Instagram and the influencer will see like counts making it more difficult for others to evaluate engagement and source influencers. I.e. Removing like counts benefits Instagram's ad network.
Spenser Sembrat
@rrhoover I understand what you’re saying, but the individual accounts will still be able to see their own likes, so if me, someone looking for a well engaged influencer to promote my product, I can just ask them to send me their analytics. It’s a little extra hassle, but i don’t think it will affect that industry as much as everyone says it will.
Abadesi
@rrhoover really good point... might mean driving innovation in platforms that measure and manage influencer marketing campaigns.
Suently
@rrhoover There will still be a way to gather the like counts from tools, but it will require more processing time. Users will still be able to click and see the list of people who liked a specific post, the only metric that will be hidden is the "total likes". That being said, social analytics tools can still programmatically parse all the users who liked, and get the total count.
Suently
@spensersembrat It doesn't affect so much the final approach to an influencer (if you trust the data he is sending you is real), but it greatly affects the influencer/micro influencer discovery process where you need to rely on public data (as we do with our social analytics tool) to analyze profile history, growth and be able to score accounts before starting the whole process of contacting them and developing a marketing campaign
Amy Giddon
The scorekeeping ("compare and despair") of social media is just one aspect of how social media preys on our insecurities and worst instincts. When you factor in the business model of attention extraction, and the power of algorithms and outrage to fan the flames, it's a recipe for for social validation addiction and disconnection, to oneself and others. We're trying something different with the Daily Haloha app: anonymous, judgment-free, status-free. We're replacing comparison with perspective, judgment with curiosity, and approval with authenticity. Would love to know what you all think! (we've soft launched in the app stores).
Abadesi
@amy_giddon1 sounds really interesting and more like the kind of social media I would like to be a part of
Amy Giddon
@abadesi then join us :) Would really love to know what you think! I'm particularly curious if you would even call us social media? We sit somewhere in between Headspace and Facebook. http://onelink.to/tkfewu
Abadesi
@amy_giddon1 i'll check it out when i next have my phone in hand
Gonçalo Henriques
I don't really post on Instagram anymore. but I understand the issue. I used to do game reviews on youtube and I used to make a lot of giveaways. One of the main metrics of success were the likes on every social platform. This could be a problem but I believe that Influencers will find new ways to track success (like sales from a tracked link) and this will probably take down some of the fake likes Influencers that don't bring any marketing value to the brands.
Ghost Kitty
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Abadesi
@samuelpolat that's encouraging to hear! I can't wait for when this new experiment hits my region. Really want to try it out.
Lenny Hu
As a business, the likes were mostly vanity metrics anyway. We're really looking at profile views, follows, and clicks to websites. But I would be curious to see how hiding the likes would affect those metrics (if they do at all).
Abadesi
@lenndizzle yes good points, I'm interested to see that, too.
Suently
@lenndizzle Check out this article, the first studies report that there is a decrease of around 12.5% of likes, when global likes are not shown: https://medium.com/swlh/impact-o... Unfortunately there are no studies yet regarding the other marketing metrics that you mentiones. In my opinion the number of profiles views will increase, and all the other metrics will follow!
Abadesi
@lenndizzle @upcoml super interesting thanks for sharing
John Bauer
This is a new test, and we like new changes. When they remove likes they should include something like views or anything else. What do you suggest?
Abadesi
@john_bauer1 that's an interesting question which I hadn't thought of. I don't think I need any metric to go alongside the content other than perhaps how long ago it was posted.
Jim Canto
@john_bauer1 @abadesi Very interesting. And, makes me wonder what the algorithm could then be set up to present. After all, it would be even more difficult to understand "why" something shows up in your feed without a look into some data point.
Ghost Kitty
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Andrea Hernández✨
It's been proven that "instagram likes" are basically dopamine hits for your brain. Good for the collective overall, particularly those growing up on IG, I have seen brands that have been shying away from using likes as a significant metric, see Pattern Brands and focus on engagement like shares of posts and comments. Any change that FB, IG does ultimately benefits them, if you follow the people who work in IG departments you'll see the presentations they make to justify the changes such as the algo change and the statistics they use to back it up, even if from a user point of view it's a nuisance, they will effect the changes that increase revenue, encourage the use of ad spending for sure. IG is a millennial playground, I know Genzers are not as engaged as we are with this platform so will be interesting to see how it fairs among their group.
Abadesi
@iiiitsandrea super interesting thanks for sharing.
Akash Nidhi
I feel this is a double edged sword. Earlier i used to get notification for every like that i received on the post and i used to open the app to check. Feeling to see more likes was satisfying at the same time was affecting my productivity. So i disabled the app notification for likes but still i used to subconsciously open the app to see the likes! I think it's a good move keeping anxiety and other mental aspects that was associated with like counts. And lot of bots will get unemployed now :D
Edison Espinosa
as Cardi B said in another video (#teamCardi) Likes are what made Insta fun, The real problem lies in the fact you can like comments and the algorithm. Just remove likes from comments (part of the reason they also removed commenting cause it amplifies trolls and those bots saying "check my last picture" )
Elena Zabalueva
Absolutely yes!!! As far as I understand, Instagram doesn't plan to hide likes from the user himself, i.e. I will be able to see the reaction to MY content and provide this information to advertisers on demand...
Allan Revah
Instagram without likes is basically a shared Dropbox
Tommy Brown
Worth mentioning here that they’re not entirely removing likes, you just won’t be able to see how many other people got...will still be able to like and see how many people liked your post.
Abadesi
@browntommy thanks for clarifying!
Jonathan Sun
Definitely teenagers will be affected for sure, since one big metric they use for self-esteem is the amount of IG likes. But also businesspeople. How do you know how effective a post is then?
Rona Cothran
I think I will love them much more. Likes and Upvotes ruined the world