Social media was supposed to be the one safe space where we could be whoever we wanted, an escape from the endless traffic, bad roads and the many problems of our beloved motherland. However, we all know this is not what happened. A lot of factors came together over the years to make social media the complex beast it has become today with so many moving parts. We are now asking some tough questions about what it means for society in terms of commerce, education, marketing, social engagement and so much more.

On the 9th of November WIRED, a US tech magazine posted a video where Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri, confirmed that months after testing hiding like counts in countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand, some Instagram users in the US can expect their like counts to vanish from public view. Everybody knows that testing this successfully in the US is a good springboard for launching it globally. According to a tweet by the official Instagram handle, this move would allow users to focus on the photos and videos they share, not how many likes they get. The tweet also said that users will still be able to see likes on their own posts.

So what does this mean in practice?

CNN Business explains that “When someone you follow has liked someone else’s photo, it will say ‘[name of Instagram account] and others’ under the post where likes would typically appear. Users can then click to see a list of the accounts who have liked the post, although they won’t be able to see a number highlighting how many people have liked it.”  And it is anybody’s guess how this will change the way we use social media if the feature is eventually shipped at scale.

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One of the immediate talking points in public opinion in the wake of the Instagram news was that this is obviously targeted at small level influencers who depend on referrals from platforms like Instagram to carve out space for themselves on the internet. The discussion also spitballed into what this means for influencer marketing in general. The sentiment is that Facebook is moving to eventually centralize all marketing on its platform so that the only valuable way of reaching users would be through the app’s native digital ads.

In this report, Paris Martineau of WIRED pondered if the removal of likes would make the internet healthier. Paris posits that “Increased engagement is good for business, and the impulse to check the score is an easy way to keep users coming back.” Quantifiable metrics including likes, follows, retweets and others make marketing on the internet a breeze as they give you figures to check exactly how many people interact with your post, where they’re from and in some cases, how long they did and whether they clicked on any outbound links. Over the years, features like this have made social media increasingly attractive to marketers, as it continues to break down and make cheaper the distance barrier brands have hitherto experienced reaching massive audiences.

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How this move will affect marketing on the internet going forward is anybody’s guess but it already looks like some of the first casualties if any may appear in influencer marketing which has been under increased scrutiny as of late, even though reports show that yearly earnings for influencers (at least for US brands) is as high as it has ever been. According to this study published by The Wall Street Journal, brands and marketers are really beginning to ask tough questions about the effectiveness of influencer marketing and what value it accrues to their bottom line. Going through the report, we were able to summarise a couple of key points and deduce some interesting consequences if Instagram’s new move indeed becomes the industry standard.

We will be keenly watching happenings in the influencer and general digital marketing space in the coming months to highlight any interesting trends or snowball effects of this move by Instagram.  Also don’t forget that if you need professional advice running digital marketing campaigns, you can talk to us here or call us on 07016504685.