ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INSTAGRAM HIDING LIKES

This past Friday Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced to Wired and on Twitter that Instagram will start hiding public likes in the U.S. this week.

According to him, the reason for the bold move is to depressurize Instagram and make it less of a competition, especially for young people. 

This does not come as a surprise. Instagram has been testing this in many countries (including my country, Brazil) for a few months now. But they had not announced when it would start in the U.S. until now. 

Here's all you need to know about this change:

1. LIKES ARE NOT "GOING AWAY"

You may have seen many people and even publications say likes will "go away". That's misinformation or poor choice of words. Likes themselves aren't going anywhere. Public like counts are going away. This means you can still see your own likes (both the number and who liked any of your posts), but when you look at someone else's post, you will see "@janedoe and others liked this post" instead of what you see now, which is "@janedoe and 153 others liked this post". You should still be able to click on the thumbnails on the left and open the whole list of who liked a post and even manually count it. It's only that total number that is going away.

See the difference below. Screenshot on the left is how we see posts currently here in the U.S. and on the right, you will see how people see posts in Brazil, where this has been implemented a few months back.

2. LIKES WILL STILL MATTER 

This is very important you understand! So many people have been saying this change means likes no longer matter, but that is complete nonsense. Likes matter just as much a before. Likes are an acknowledgement that our messages were seen (or brand partner's messages, if you're an influencer). Likes are the first step that will lead you to a sale. People usually like the posts, then if you can keep them interested past the image, comment or take your call to action that can lead them all the way to a purchase, which is most businesses' and influencers' ultimate goal. So this change is not your way out of trying to get engagement in your business account. 

3. COMMENTS WILL MATTER EVEN MORE

With the public number of likes going away, people will continue to pay attention to numbers of followers but shift their attention from likes to numbers of comments as an engagement metric. But that's a good thing, since getting a comment and starting a conversation with your audience is a lot more important for business than getting a double tap, we all win. If you're not happy with your engagement lately, make sure you sign up for my free webinar Decoding the Instagram Algorithm.

4. THIS WILL NOT AFFECT INFLUENCER MARKETING

If you're an influencer and are worried that not seeing your number of likes could make a brand not reach out to you, don't worry, that should not be the case. Brands will look at your followers, comments and content instead. If you want to encourage brands to reach out more often, you can always create a highlight geared towards brands. You can show past collaborations or a version of a media kit inviting brands to email you for more details as an extra incentive.

Brazilian influencer Nathy of @onde_encontrar, who took one of my classes earlier this year, said:

"Since this has been implemented here in Brazil, people has felt encouraged to post things they didn't feel they should post before. Specifically for digital influencers, and in my case, I have started posting photos that were more conceptual after the number of likes were hidden, and it has been very positive. There's a sense of freedom! In relation to brand partners, not much has changed. Media kits and results of the campaigns we share with them continue being the focus."

5. INSTAGRAM IS NOT DOING THIS TO SELL MORE ADS

Unlike many people have been posting about, this move has nothing to do with selling more ads! Why would people need to buy more ads because of this? No one would be able to see the number of likes from an ad either. Others say Instagram is doing this to hurt influencer marketing, so they would sell ads instead. This is also completely nonsense (see bullet 4). Most likely Instagram is doing this for PR reasons, as it hurts their brand to have stories everywhere of how Instagram can affect people's self esteem and even mental health. I also choose to believe there is a hint of social responsibility in there too, which is nice. 

6. NOT ALL OF US WILL SEE THIS CHANGE RIGHT AWAY

Just like anything else Instagram implements, this won't go into effect in all accounts at once. Some of us may see this change as early as this week, some may not see it for a long time.

It's a change in the right direction, so just enjoy, but don't forget that when it comes to business, content that performs are the content that will help your brand, whether it's likes, comments, saves, clicks or hopefully all of them.

If you are not happy with your Instagram engagement, the first step top fix it is to understand the algorithm and play by its rules.

In this FREE 30-minute webinar I will go over the 3 main criteria the algorithm uses to rank your content to your followers on Instagram and what to do to address each of them, so your content is seen by more people.

This is only my second ever free training, so don't miss it!