Instagram’s real reason behind hiding likes globally
If you have not heard about the experiment Instagram conducted in Canada and six other countries earlier this year to understand the reactions of users by hiding likes. Other users can no longer see likes, and only the account holder can view them.
Influencers are, of course, worried that their means of income would be affected as the Brands will not be able to verify how many likes a particular post has received. Becoming an influencer is the dream job for many kids/teens/adults, according to a recent article by Bloomberg. The influencer market has boomed in the last few years and is anticipated to grow to a $6.5bn industry by 2020.
Instagram claims they are focusing on improving mental health and human well-being. But being Product Managers, we can’t help but think about the real reason behind this change.
Half-Truth or Re-brand
YES, Instagram wants to focus on the mental health of the users, but why now? Facebook, the parent entity of Instagram, has been under the constant scrutiny of Data Privacy violations and has continuously been blamed for the 2016 US election meddling. They have received ample backlash from the governments and people across the globe. Social responsibility and moral awakening have taken place for Facebook to rebrand itself as a socially responsible firm.
Losing ad revenue if the engagement is dropping
We would be led to believe there must be a recent decline in user engagement that led Instagram to conduct this experiment. Most of Instagram’s revenue is from ads on stories and timelines. If the user engagement drops, the lower number of ads watched is revenue loss for Instagram.
Reasons for the possible drop in user engagement could be:
- Users did not receive an abundant number of “Likes” as expected.
- Due to recent algorithmic change by Instagram, the posts are not automatically appearing in the feeds of the users if:
- The Creator* is not an active poster.
- The Creator* who hasn’t been getting ample comments on his/ her posts.
- The Creator* who hasn’t been engaging with other influencers and creators.
(For the sake of an article; let’s name different kinds of users: User who posts is called Creator, User who view or comment let’s call them Viewer; not the term used by Instagram)
Instagram does not care about Influencers
Even though this change affects Influencers and Brands, they only comprise a small percentage of the user base. 80% of Instagram’s user base is still regular users who browse and share their day to day life via stories and posts. Instagram identified the trend where they were losing a considerable chunk of the revenue pie. Influencers are bucketing it, and they are not contributing to any of the revenue towards the platform.
Instagram wants businesses to spend on purchasing ads
With several small companies to large retailers moving to promote their products heavily on Instagram. Instagram intends to bucket the influencer led marketing and convert it into its own ad revenue. It will make it a level playing field for all brands to reach out to potential users, not only the brands with the most popular influencers with most likes are getting the most engagement.
Brands do care about Influencers which may force Instagram to bring back this feature
The new Instagram new announcement not only directly impacts the influencers but also affects the brands as well as changes the Instagram revenue in the long run. It is a battle between social responsibility vs. business responsibility. We would suggest that Instagram can introduce a feature that allows the influencer and their followers to view the number of views of the given post, just like the number of impressions in the case of twitter. In this way, it is not hurting someone’s feelings of a particular position is not getting liked or not but also provide an idea to followers about the number of people viewing the given posts.
The number of “Likes” not only influences the decision of the users to make purchase goods, clothes but also influences followers to engage with posts or not.
KPI matters for Instagram Stories
At this point, we would like to talk about important KPI’s from Instagram stories perspective and how they may or may not impact based on the new change.
- The number of people engaging with the story. [Engagement]
- The number of people viewing the stories. [Engagement]
- The number of people visiting Instagram on daily as well as a monthly basis [Engagement]
- The number of impressions on the same stories. [Engagement]
- The number of people who are sharing the stories [Engagement]
- The number of users who are commenting on the accounts. [Engagement]
- The number of new people who are joining Instagram on a monthly and quarterly basis. [Acquisition]
Although the long term effects are still unpredictable with this change, it will definitely make the quality content get the deserving attention and engagement. Brands can focus on creating better content and it won’t be about popularity contest for brands and users on Instagram.
Written by Yogesh Sharma and Susmitha Burra
