You may have found your way to this blog post by a Google search, or you may be reading this because you saw my Instagram post and clicked the link in my bio. My business only exists because of Instagram. I starting sharing my lettering on Instagram, which led to me making a blog, which led to me making sales across the globe, because social media allowed me to connect with others around the world with ease. I’m a business who relies on Instagram and I’m EXCITED about Instagram getting rid of likes.
Yep. I said it. We’ve known about this rolling out in different countries slowly for a while. On Thursday, July 18th, Instagram got rid of likes in Australia. I’ve seen a number of posts, read a few different blogs/articles, and it’s like anything else with social media: People love it or people hate it. But, I thought it was important to share my opinion as somebody who has a platform on Instagram and even more important as a business with the primary source of sales being directly from that platform.
Now you see, I don’t refer to it often about being a platform unless I pair it with the word community… because that’s what I built on Instagram. I built a community surrounding my business.
I preach often about algorithm-smalgorithm. Yes, the algorithm is “important“, but I truly do not believe that you should base your every move on it. I think what makes a platform powerful (aka what allows an account to become an influencer) is being authentic enough that those that follow you on Instagram trust your recommendations and that they interact with you often. Now the downside to this is when you dive into the deeper question of why accounts care about likes, and it’s because they’re trying to beat the algorithm. I think that is something that Instagram should take into consider as they continue to implement these changes.
I had barely surpassed 1,000 followers when I got my first sponsorship on Instagram (and that company reached out to me). Why? Well, long story short, because they liked the content I was creating. Period. I always remind people that they can have 100,000 followers but if only 100 of those followers make a purchase or interact with your content, that number doesn’t mean much to businesses (or to that person either likely as they realize the number is irrelevant). My understanding is that the goal behind Instagram’s decision is to allow you to focus back on creating content you love & less on creating content that OTHERS love (aka what gets more likes).
I truly do not believe that Instagram getting rid of likes is going to ruin your business as an influencer or as a business that relies on Instagram.
As a business or a creator on Instagram, you’re still going to have access to your insights that can allow you to have statistics to share with businesses. If you pay for ads, you’ll still be able to see those insights in your Ad Manager. You’re still going to be able to have information to share with companies that you partner with or that sponsor a post. You can even still go in and see how your own post did. But, you won’t click on your feed and think, “I loved this post. Why is it half as popular as the last post?” If you’re somebody who the numbers discourages, this makes it easy to turn a blind eye to the numbers on a daily basis and focus back on the “why” behind your posts.
What do I think this will do? Well, I’m not quite sure yet. This will have an impact on Instagram users & businesses across the globe because Instagram is a powerful tool and any change that is implemented is going to have an impact. But, what do I hope comes from this? My hope is that it encourages others to interact more (comments, etc.) and that it places more power in that than likes. My hope is that it takes the pressure off of personal users, especially young users, to post certain things or post in a certain way.
My hope is that it allows people to focus less on likes and more on living and sharing pieces of that with others.
What do YOU think about Instagram hiding likes? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or reach out on Instagram! Until next time, stay bossy y’all.
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