Whether you are an Instagram influencer or just a casual user, number of likes on posts matter to all. Recently, Instagram revealed that it would expand its experiment to hide the total count of likes on posts. Influencers who use total like counts of their posts to monitor their content performance are the ones most concerned after this announcement.
We are all concerned to know about the impact of the removal of like counts on users. Would users not like the content at all if they can’t see the total like count? How would this new test impact on the overall engagement?
Recently, the influencer marketing platform named HypeAuditor released a study that reveals about the user behavior on content. The study includes content from more than 154k Instagram influencers. These influencers have more than 30% of the followers coming from regions where Instagram is currently testing the hidden like count feature.
The study reveals that nano-influencers faced some downfall in its likes due to this hidden like count but not all. Among influencers with 5k to 20k followers, Brazil is the most affected region with a hidden number of likes. Japanese influencers with 20k to 100k followers also saw a major downfall due to this hidden like count test by Instagram.
Even though HypeAuditor categorized influencers with various regions but we think the results are still not so much definitive. The study revealed by HypeAuditor does display some impact on user engagement due to hidden like counts on posts but we are just not sure to consider it a negative impact or a positive impact. We are still not sure about the exact impact of hidden like count on engagements of Influencers and maybe that is because there is no data-based response from Instagram itself revealing about the success of this test. According to the data revealed by HypeAuditor, the hidden like count does display some reduced total likes to influential users at least.
Photo: GettyImages
Read next: Instagram Featured in Facebook Transparency Report. Hate Speech, Spam, Fake Accounts Absent
We are all concerned to know about the impact of the removal of like counts on users. Would users not like the content at all if they can’t see the total like count? How would this new test impact on the overall engagement?
Recently, the influencer marketing platform named HypeAuditor released a study that reveals about the user behavior on content. The study includes content from more than 154k Instagram influencers. These influencers have more than 30% of the followers coming from regions where Instagram is currently testing the hidden like count feature.
The study reveals that nano-influencers faced some downfall in its likes due to this hidden like count but not all. Among influencers with 5k to 20k followers, Brazil is the most affected region with a hidden number of likes. Japanese influencers with 20k to 100k followers also saw a major downfall due to this hidden like count test by Instagram.
Even though HypeAuditor categorized influencers with various regions but we think the results are still not so much definitive. The study revealed by HypeAuditor does display some impact on user engagement due to hidden like counts on posts but we are just not sure to consider it a negative impact or a positive impact. We are still not sure about the exact impact of hidden like count on engagements of Influencers and maybe that is because there is no data-based response from Instagram itself revealing about the success of this test. According to the data revealed by HypeAuditor, the hidden like count does display some reduced total likes to influential users at least.
Bottom Line
Instagram’s this new test of hidden like count is affecting user engagement for sure but then again we don’t have much authentic information regarding the influencer performance specifically. The desire to gain more likes on posts is literally driving users to do some illegal activities too and this new step by Instagram is to stop that from happening. Instagram is a social media platform and should be considered as one. The data provided by HypeAuditor is interesting but non-definitive to Instagram as a test. So we are really looking forward to Instagram to soon announce more definitive feedback on the impact of this hidden like count to influencers.
Photo: GettyImages
Read next: Instagram Featured in Facebook Transparency Report. Hate Speech, Spam, Fake Accounts Absent
