Instagram Hiding Likes vs. Brands and Agencies
We've all asked ourselves whether Instagram hiding likes is a danger to influencer marketing. We certainly didn't believe that. In fact, we embraced this transition as a paradigm shift and predicted that the influencer marketing sector would continue to expand rapidly.
Challenge #1: Determining an influencer's influence.
Determining an influencer's influence would be the most straightforward problem for companies and agencies. Without likes, how could they tell if an influencer's account was functioning well? The following size is still evident, but in the world of marketing, an influencer's engagement rate (the number of likes and comments) is crucial.
See Beyond the Likes as a solution.
Fortunately, we don't only consider an influencer's likes when analyzing their performance. Sometimes, it's said that factors like comments, audience expansion, post regularity, authenticity, etc. are much more fascinating to consider.
Accept this modification as an innovative new technique to examine influencers' performance in greater detail; you might be surprised by the results! We advise keeping an eye out for a steady stream of comments on articles, good remarks from actual followers, a high realness %, and a steady growth rate in the following size.
Challenge #2: Lower Engagement
The second problem that follows is connected to the initial purpose for which Instagram evaluated this change: Will the likes being concealed cause influencers' engagement to decline? Even though Instagram hasn't yet shared its results, there is now conjecture that the answer is, in part, yes.
Genuine content creation is the answer.
However, it makes sense for certain influencers to see a decline in likes when their likes are hidden. Is this a negative thing, though? In our opinion, no. We think that doing this will make it easier for consumers, companies, and agencies to see how "meaningless" likes may really hurt marketing.
Users who simply like a photo because it has a lot of likes are engaging in a meaningless way that, in the realm of marketing, doesn't result in actions. Influencers, companies, and agencies will all face difficulties as a result of the need for higher-quality content that would genuinely encourage likes and engagements.
Challenge #3: How to Track Campaign Performance
The third issue is how businesses will truly monitor influencer success in a partnership: When there is no quantifiable achievement to compare or assess, how can one proceed?
Solution: Transform Obstacles into Chances
The number of likes should merely be one of several metrics’ marketers use to assess the success of a campaign. Instagram's ability to hide likes can motivate businesses to think about more important indicators, such as estimated reach, estimated impressions, comments' quantity and quality, website traffic, affiliate code usage, and many more.
In conclusion, no matter how the social media industry chooses to evolve, we at Smartfluence continue to hold the opinion that influencer marketing is a trend that will not go away. Brands, agencies, influencers, and customers can all adapt very well to changes in this market, including new social media platforms, content creation trends, FDA requirements, and other new developments, problems, and possibilities.
As you can see, influencer marketing is a very new and rapidly evolving field. At Smartfluence, we like embracing change and thinking up creative solutions to make it work.
If you’re interested in learning more about influencer marketing and how Smartfluence can help you establish and scale your influencer marketing campaigns, feel free to book a demo here.
