Instagram prepares to expand its test of hiding likes in the U.S. What does that mean for brands, and for influencer marketing?

By: Nycole Hampton + Gareth Davies

The time has come Instagram announced last week that they are going to expand their test and hide likes in the U.S. So what exactly does this mean? It’s pretty simple (for now): As we scroll through our feed, we’ll no longer be able to see the number of likes a piece of content receives (except on our own posts). While the actual number will be hidden, people can see that the content has been liked and they can click in to see who has liked it. Users can continue to engage with content as they always have. Overall, not much is changing, but to no surprise, the announcement was met with general uproar across social media, with angry influencers and business owners fearing this could be the end for them. While we can understand the initial shock and fear factor that this has induced, when we take a step back to consider the true repercussions, it turns out hiding likes has the potential to be one of the best things to happen to the influencer marketing world in a while.

We all know influencer marketing has continued to grow—and has faced growing pains along the way. But it’s here to stay and with the continued relatively low barrier of entry to join Instagram and other social channels, the “integrity” of being an influencer has been challenged with the introduction of bots that boost followers and engagement and comments pods that bolster engagement using less-than-authentic tactics. With the elimination of likes, we take away one of the key things people were using to trick the system to appear “influential.” This doesn’t just apply to influencers; brands have the same pressure to stand out and stay competitive which has led to some trying the same methods to bolster growth and engagement.

And we’ve heard from a variety of influencers that have taken the time and effort to prove themselves over the years that this helps separate individuals deemed influencers based on merit versus those who have built their influence using manipulation. There are still plenty of valid and effective influencers on social media, and this is a small but significant step to help them rise above the pack. We all know that when done right, identifying influencers goes far beyond the likes, and dives deeper into qualitative and quantitative measures. Once likes are gone, brands and agencies will have to continue to refine their approach to identifying and engaging with actual influencers. This isn’t just the case for how they evaluate influencers’ ability to drive (quality) engagement, it will also impact how they will identify the right stories and content needed to drive engagement and action (be that awareness, sales, or some other metric of conversion) amongst the audiences that matter most because they’ll no longer have multiple engagement metrics to judge what content or story type best resonates with an influencer’s audience. 

Let’s start with the selection of influencers. To date, likes have been a very visible metric to understand an influencer’s ability to generate response and participation amongst their following, but they are also an indication of the authenticity of the influencer’s following. Once this has been removed, brands and agencies will need to lean into other metrics and data. There are a growing number of tools on the market that can provide this sort of insight, the key is being able to understand the data provided from both a benchmark and comparative perspective as well as a behaviorally. Agencies will need to get smarter at understanding, combining and deciphering new data sets – such as influencer and brand demographic overlap and social listening data – to evaluate whether or not an influencer has the attention of a brand’s target audience.

Additionally, there is the impact of removing likes on a brand’s content choices. Again, likes have been one way to show the extent to which an audience has found the content “valuable” or “interesting,” but the removal means we will need to look at other engagement metrics such as comments, shares, mentions, views or clicks. Does an influencer see consistent levels of comments across certain content types? Do comments for certain content and stories indicate an increase in brand/message awareness or a stronger propensity to buy? These will potentially become the new key indicators in helping identify the content that can be seeded through influencers to drive the desired outcome amongst a brand’s target audience. Not only will brands and agencies have to look at performance metrics differently, but they’ll need to better guide an influencer to create content that takes their followers beyond a quick interaction. There will be necessary education for each campaign to ensure an influencer is amply armed to drive a conversation surrounding your brand with succinct messaging and strategic CTAs. Brands will also have to step it up here as well, driving conversation is more important now than ever before. Potential customers develop opinions on brands based on how others engage with their content. If the like count is void, people will rely even more on the quality of comments and conversation happening on a piece of content.

Finally, with all of the above in mind, the removal of likes will force a larger conversation around ensuring content has smart and targeted whitelisted paid media behind it to ensure that the content and stories being activated by your chosen influencers will be guaranteed a place in front of the right audiences at the right time in order to garner the desired response. It will also drive brands and agencies to have a more in-depth conversation at the start of campaign planning to develop a more robust understanding of the audiences that really matter to the client so that influencer, content and paid amplification plans can be designed to deliver an optimal outcome. 

While the removal of likes will without a doubt cause disruption and healthy debate amongst influencers, brands, and agencies, we see this as just another reminder that we, as marketers, should never get set in our ways. Social media and influencer marketing continues to evolve, and the way that we tackle it must also evolve for us to achieve success for our clients and brands.