Last week Instagram announced that its test period of hiding likes expands to the rest of the world. Previously, likes have been removed just in several countries, including Australia, Brazil and Canada. We immediately noted that there was no number of likes in our Instagram profile, and asked Kristina Nikeenko, the Head of Influencer Marketing, to comment on this.
Yeah, Instagram started hiding likes from April 2019 in Canada and slowly expanded to different countries. Right now, this trend is getting global: we do not see the number of likes on our Instagram anymore.
The bloggers’ reaction is kind of controversial. Some of them support it and think that the audience doesn’t need to focus on public opinion but the content itself. The other part of bloggers is really negative. Experts say that it can hurt creators and influencers by reducing their activity. But I think that Instagram will adjust the mechanisms of placing a post to recommendations and it will be fine.
I think, the bloggers who are confident about what they do and are satisfied with the content they make — they support it. Kim Kardashian said that she doesn’t need anyone to see how many likes her post gets. At the same time Nicki Minaj admitted “Oh, there is nothing to do on Instagram anymore. I’m leaving.” So, we’ll see how it goes.
So, we calculate the Key Performance Indicator based on ER as well. So, we’ll need to request screenshots from bloggers that show how many likes they get. But the problem is that somebody can cheat and photoshop the numbers. That’s why we need to be more cautious about data accuracy. We’ll also need to take into consideration Discussion Rate: comments divided on the reach. I think this indicator will show the real number of engaged audience on the channel.