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Likes Pay Bills Not Vibes
Facebook announced that they will be giving users the ability to [hide likes](https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/giving-people-more-control) on Instagram and Facebook. This came after years of criticism on how social media metrics are a cause of mental health problems. And no one is happy.
Motivation aside, why were people unhappy? Putting the onus on the user does not absolve Facebook of its responsibilities toward their users, some critics say. Facebook is essentially saying, this is your problem now. But how do you grow your brand as a Creator and/or influencer if you’re unable to easily show verifiable metrics? How do you grow an audience?
This is a problem that affects starting influencers and is less of a problem for established influencers with large followings. The full restaurant bustling with patrons is far more likely to get more walk-ins than the empty one.
Facebook has been testing hiding likes since 2019 and guess what? They discovered that it doesn’t really matter.
When Facebook announced that it had plans to launch an Instagram for Kids, almost everyone thought it was a terrible idea. In fact, 40 US attorneys asked Facebook to [scrap Instagram for Kids](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/technology/instagram-kids.html). This did not have much of an impact on Facebook’s plans, but the criticism that this is going to further exacerbate mental health issues could have something to do with hiding likes.
I think Instagram for Kids is a horrible idea and I absolutely hate it. However, I suspect that rolling the removal of likes has something to do with their plans to push forward with their awful plans.
In the meantime, influencers and creators can breath a sigh of relief. Whether Facebook will admit to it or not, analytics metrics rely very heavily on engagement data; including but not limited to likes. Not everyone has the tools to run deep analysis on social media accounts or posts, to tell what is trending or what is hot. We need simple indicators that we can then qualify with what we already know about the world around us.
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6 Replies
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All new posts need a flair going forward
byu/JonODonovan insocialmedia -
I think making the “hide likes count” feature a choice for users was a good move, but it is interesting that they decided to move forward with this after their own internal data proved to them that it didn’t make much of a difference in how the product impacted users.
As for IG for kids, I just saw an article yesterday in which Adam M pretty much acknowledged that it shouldn’t be up to FB to make products kid-friendly, but that something needs to be done to protect children who are on these platforms regardless. I think one of his suggestions was putting the age verification step into the operating system and then transmitting that encrypted data to all apps that can then lock out / change the view of the user.
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Likes shouldn’t be paying bills. Actual conversions from an influencer campaign and results should be driving whether or not influencers are making money. In any other business they want to see results, and hopefully this change gears us towards that.
Also as for the IG for kids, most adults don’t realize kids already have IG accounts. They are called “finstas” which stands for “fake Instagram.” They use these accounts to hide from their parents but still post pictures and use it as an adult where they can’t be monitored by their parents. Maybe this platform will change that.
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I feel this will hurt influencers in the short term, but could benefit them long term.
We all know likes is a bad metric to base the success of an influencer campaign, or even use it as a metric to make a valid argument from. With this removal, or partial removal to be exact, would just make people find another metric to obsess about and let’s hope it’s not another irrelevant one like likes.
For example, wouldn’t clicks in bio, accounts reached, reach overall, engagement % be better metrics to base our success upon? Knowing this, likes doesn’t do that much anymore and the removal will definitely affect other areas, but not the measurement of success of any given campaign. What do you guys think?
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If it’s *optional* to hide, then aspiring influencers can choose *not* to do so, making their engagement public for weight loss tea and online mattresses to sponsor. Right?
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But I think you can still see the likes and everything? Are likes totally removed?
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