As of late, my Instagram mainly consists of photography from my small business (Stargazer Photography) that I run. As with most posts on social media, most individuals consider a post “successful” by the number of likes it received. I too, fell victim of wondering what I had to do to get more likes and doubted my work based on the number of likes it received. Fortunately for me, I was able to quickly pull myself out of that black hole quickly and made the decision that I will post my work no matter what and as long as my clients loved their portraits, that is all that mattered. I noticed that the more I posted and the more engaged I was with my account the more inquiries I received. Note that I said I received more inquiries, not likes. So that made me wonder, how many people were engaging with my account that I did not know. These inquires were no where to be found in my likes list but yet they had seen my work and engaged with me in regards to it. And to me that was good enough.
But that is not the same case for most Instagram users. In fact, a study was done by the Royal Society for Public Health and they deemed Instagram to be the most toxic social media platform. Due mostly in part to the younger users defining their self esteem based on the number of likes they get or lack there of. There are many cases where social media has proven to have a negative effect on the well being and relationships of its users due the large emphasis placed on likes.
In response to these studies among other variables, Instagram is currently conducting an experiment in a few countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand, that will remove likes from the view of your followers. While I think this is a brilliant idea because it will decrease the amount of focus on likes and get back to Instagram’s original intent and that was to engage with friends and family. Focusing on the content being shared not how many likes it received. Although there are a lot of people who are in favor of this new change, there are others that are not happy. These unhappy users are mostly influencers that feel the new format will make it harder for potential clients to seek them out to market their brands. Big name brands will not be affected by this change too much, because they will still be able to measure the metrics of engagement. “Key metrics include the post engagement rate (post interactions divided by follower count), impressions (the total number of times your content was served to users), and reach (the total number of unique accounts who saw the content).”
Although the owners will still be able to see their likes, in order for their followers to see them they would have to click on the list and count them. Who really has time for THAT!? Influencers that make millions will now have to provide that data to companies and they fear the ease of just looking at their account will decrease the amount of business they can potentially have. I was wondering would this new format cause more obsessive behavior for users and followers? Will they make comments more prone to bullying and scrutiny? Some influencers feel like it will demotivate them from posting. I find it odd yet not surprising that we are at a place in society where a simple double tap from a perfect stranger can make or break you as a person. How do we fix this? Are we too far gone as a society? What say you?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/world/instagram-hidden-likes.html