31 Jan How Instagram’s Removal of Like Counts Impacts Brands
As you may have seen, Instagram began testing removing like counts on posts last year and eventually rolled it out globally by the end of the year. They did this in hopes that it would help the mental health of users, as many people are consumed by how many likes their content gets and align it to their self-esteem. You can still see your own like count, but other people can’t see how many likes your content has. Some people can see if hundreds or thousands of others liked a post and others can’t see any kind of info on how many likes there are. You can, however, still see each individual person that has liked a post if you click into the likes.
So, what impact is this having on your brand?
There haven’t been any studies published surrounding how it’s affected brands yet, but we do know that it has reduced like counts for influencers with larger followings in multiple countries, which means it is probably affecting your brand the same way. Taking away like counts takes away the element of virality and people wanting to like something just because everyone else does.
What does this mean for your brand?
The good news is, this really shouldn’t affect your brand in a negative way, minus having your like count go down in reports. It means that the likes you’re getting should be higher quality, meaning the people are more engaged because they actually like the content themselves – they aren’t just joining the bandwagon. Focusing on quality content that engages your fans should always be your number one priority anyway – not just look at the number of likes. Sure, you can monitor that, but things such as comments (especially tagging other users to see the content) and shares/reshares are far more useful to help a brand gauge which pieces of content are resonating. These metrics are more heavily correlated to affinity and business results.
So, there you have it. While seeing your like counts go down may be a scary thing, it really isn’t something you should be overly concerned with. Just keep on creating great content and your business results will stay steady.
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