Instagrammers went into shock this week with the unexpected decision to remove all likes from their feed and test the reaction.
The popular social media platform explained that the sudden change was to encourage instagram users and their followers to focus on the quality of the photos or videos they share instead of the number of likes they get.
The new Instagram feeds look like the below picture.
It has explained that the move was to stop the competition that has developed on the platform to compete for the number of likes. They hope that followers will instead focus on what is shared and content instead of trying to produce pictures with the one and only objective to offer something people will like.
INSTAGRAM CHANGES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
- Individual users will still be able to see their own likes by tapping on their own liker list.
- The test simply means that others will not be able to see how many likes your post has received.
- Likewise, you will not be able to see how many likes others’ posts have received.
- For businesses and creators on Instagram, this will not affect their measurement tools like Insights or Ad Manager, which they can continue to use in the same way to understand their account engagement.
“We want Instagram to be a place where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. We hope this test will remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, so you can focus on sharing the things you love. We are now rolling the test out to Australia so we can learn more about how this can benefit people’s experiences on Instagram, and whether this change can help people focus less on likes and more on telling their story.”
Mia Garlick, Director of Policy, Facebook Australia & NZ Zealand
A similar test has already been done in Canada last May and Instagram has learned a lot from this one that’s why they have decided to expand the test to other countries this month.