Instagram to Hide Likes : What Does it Mean?

In case you haven’t heard Instagram announced they will be hiding like counts as early as this week!!

What does this mean for you?

Likes will be visible to the original poster, but you will not be able to see the like counts on other posts on IG.
They have tested this out in other countries for months, and it’s now debuting in the US this week.
The point of this is to shift the focus on IG from likes to CONNECTIONS, conversations and community as a whole.

“As you scroll through your feed, there are no like counts”, explained Mark Zuckerberg at FB. “You can see who liked a photo or video, you can tap through to see {the list} and if you have the time you can add them up yourself.”

Why is this important?

For the longest time likes have been a common metric used to measure the success of a post.
By hiding the number of likes, it gives us more freedom of expression and release from the “comparison trap”.
With this update, you can post what you want and not feel like people are judging if there is a drop in your engagement.

How does this affect influencers and brands?

Considering the metric for successful engagement on a post is likes + saves + comments + shares / total followers – this will only be available on the back end of each person’s account.
Other metrics still hold value: reach, impressions, profile views and website clicks.
This may shift a turn from IG Influencers to paid IG advertising, but only time will tell

Although it may seem stressful, different, and new way of looking at things, this is ultimately a good thing. Hiding likes gives users more creative freedom which is what IG is supposed to be about, and it removes the comparative ranking that was holding us back from BEING creative. Whether IG decides to roll this change out permanently or not also remains to be seen, but the fact that they are going to such great lengths to test it leads us to believe it will be.