Last week Instagram announced that it was testing hiding likes on posts and video views on accounts in more countries.

It first rolled out in Canada a few months back. Now it is being rolled out to:

Australia
Brazil
Ireland
Italy
Japan
New Zealand

We still don’t know whether it will be rolled out globally, My hunch is that it will and over the next few months.

There are mixed reviews as to whether this is a good or bad move by Instagram.
In this blog I will be talking about why I am for removing likes on Instagram posts and video views.

The first thing I think removing likes from post will help with is mental health issues.

Mental health issues that people can get from posting a photo on the grid and checking Instagram a million time per day to check how many like that post has. This is not normal behaviour and according to a report carried out by the Royal Society for Public Health, Instagram ranked the worst for mental health.

Would people still frantically be checking their Instagram posts if the likes were hidden? I have a feeling that they still would check Instagram several times per day but not in such an anxious way.

I’ve known people to be frustrated that they are getting 100s of views on their Instagram Stories but not the same amount of love on their post. There seems to be a huge amount of pressure to have at least a certain amount of likes on your posts.

Social media means a great deal to me, it’s what I do for a living as a social media consultant and it’s enabled me to connect with like minded people from all over the world. I’ve built communities, become part of communities and made friends through social media.

Personally, I’m not bothered about how many likes my posts get. I would rather the engagement from other users. Just because you have 200 people liking your photo doesn’t mean that they have read your caption, engaged with you on a deeper level, or that they will buy from you/read your blog.

Instagram users will be forced to create content that they audience wants. We will also be able to see from other accounts what content is popular because it will show up in our Instagram feed. A real bonus in my eyes.

Are you really going to like a photo just because 1000 other people have liked the photo? I know that I don’t. I like a post because I like the photo and the post has a caption that I resonate with or  lifts me up.

By removing the likes from posts I think it removes the pressure. We will be able to see the likes and data ourselves but it lessens the vulnerability.

For Influencers who rely on post likes to work with brands, this shouldn’t be the end for them by any means.
I run an influencer agency for pet brands and we have always chosen our influencers by engagement rate and the type of content that they post on their account. It’s never been about how many followers they have or how many likes per post they have. Once we have worked with an influencer on a campaign we ask for the post insights. We want the data not the vanity matrix’s. I’m hoping that all influencer agency start doing this as the norm.

In a world where we compare ourselves to strangers on the internet, I personally think that this is a great move by Instagram and hope it’s a featured that it rolled out globally. What are you thoughts?