No more Instagram likes. Is it a brilliant economic move?
It’s like a regular game: one will win, and others will lose.
On November 8th, 2019, Instagram started hiding like counts in the U.S. Carla Strong, our social network manager and digital consultant, believes that this is a brilliant economic game that will play into Instagram’s hands. But don’t be confused, Instagram still has a financial focus.
Dropping the like count provides a lot of relief for thousands of teenagers. On the other hand, it may turn into a depression for Instagram’s influencers. During the test, Instagram fans will be able to share their hearts with their friends and see how many likes they receive – but they will no longer see the number of likes other users receive, so they will not know if it is a popular picture or not.
The move started in Canada and went on to Brazil, Japan, and the U.S. At the F8 conference last April, Mark Zuckerberg announced many changes to the many platforms under his control. The most significant is probably the one that has been plaguing Instagram youngsters on Instagram these days. The move.
In announcing the move, it was argued that Instagram likes lower a user’s pressure on the amount of love they gain and limit the “competitive” element among its users. We think there is another reason – and it is related to the success of a historical scene.
Instagram stories are an all-out attempt to kill the Snapchat momentum and growth; social media executives were probably exposed to substantial data moving into the feed. The reason is apparent: While the average user probably won’t upload several photos or videos a day to his feed – There is no problem uploading more content to the story.
Why? Very simple: No likes. No one knows how many views each user receives, and competitiveness doesn’t exist.
It looks like the great success of the “story” has led Zuckerberg and his people to recalculate the content that goes onto an individual’s feed. Hiding likes ruins Facebook and Instagram plans to push users to “stories.”
The action is most likely angering a few network stars whose popularity eventually translates into the coming and going of the app. The Facebook equation here is quite simple: If people don’t see the number of likes on their friend’s photos, the viral competition will diminish. It will be based on the number of followers and responses, making users more comfortable uploading more content and staying in their feed, which, of course, will already be worth a lot of money in the social network.