Likes could soon be out of sight and out of mind. Earlier this year, Instagram released a statement saying that they wanted to get rid of likes. They announced that they weren’t taking away the complete action of liking a photo, but that they wanted to experiment with making the like count disappear.
If done, this means that users would no longer see 100 people liked this post and it would transition to “this person” and others liked this post.
The social site has received a lot of feedback from the IG community. Many users complained about the switch while others praised it. Most of the complaints came from users who worried about the lack of engagement and reduction of brand deals that influencers may face if this switch was made.
For instagram influencers, this could mean that a company would no longer see how many likes/views the influencer gets on their page. On the other hand, many users were happy with this maybe switch to come from the social media sites.
Some users claimed that they would prefer for Instagram to be used for fun and have the opportunity to enjoy their content and for it to not be used as a popularity contest. Many said that a person shouldn’t be judged by whether they get one like or a million and without the like count, everyone could be seen as equals.
These changes could possibly make the career of an influencer harder, but with other access to their stats and viewing worthy content, it might allow the career field to grow.
Do you think this switch will be a good fit for Instagram? Why or why not? Drop your thoughts in the comments!