Hey:) I was researching quite a long time, and I saw that tests on hiding the likes count were held in Canada 2 month ago, and no news after, what do you think will IG hide the likes count or?
No one really knows. They conduct tests all the time but this one was more public since people can actually see the test happening before their own eyes
I donât think so, they received a lot of critics because of that.
But, if I owned IG, I would hide them to focus on the little users and make it more social.
Nope they never will. Influencer status and money. The second they remove likes differentiating who holds more of an influential status is the second these influencers stop giving a shit about the platform because that status is what drive them revenue from IG.
In my opinion as marketer, i think not. Maybe they will change the way we do Likes but Likes and Follows are actions which gives to the users the âaction/reactionâ input and makes the action going.
As Kojange says, the status and the reaction are very important for social life in general.
I disagree. They are absolutely not going to cater to the ultra small influencer minority. They would rather have people looking to spend cash, do it on their own ads. Now, that does not mean they donât care about those accounts. Iâm sure there will be a way for business accounts to share their metrics.
Of course they donât want them leaving the platform. But really, where are they going to go? They have a major monopoly and itâs either going to be evolve or die, long, long before another platform comes around.
But not only are world governments now riding them for privacy issues, now they are holding them by the throat on the issue of the skyrocketing depressions rates that come with the dopamine effect of likes.
So far from what iâve seen, they have been getting positive feedback from pretty much everyone but marketers.
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They were doing tests. For sure, we know that likes are a metric on which most accounts are judged, more specifically the engagement rate. If likes are removed, IG will probably come up with a new metric system to define the âstatusâ and âvalueâ of an account to the eyes of the public.
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For my personal experience they hide it from my page last 2 weeks
But 3 days ago the remove it.
I donât know if they recive backlash, personal I donât like
If thatâs the case then sure but idk what alternative could replace likes. Verified had the potential for that but they handed that out like candy. Assume you go into âaccount rankingâ what does that say, you arenât worthy of platinum status? Even more detrimental imo. Likes are a hard thing to take away.
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Yep, they are probably testing the reaction of the removal of the likes for a small batch. If they have something under the hood, weâll know it soon enough. However, for now likes are what we are using and what we should be optimizing for. Concerning alternatives, only the future will tell us.
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I think they wonât but since Iâm not from Canada I canât share my feelings about their testing haha
When they did the testing, the likes themselves were not removed. It just wouldnât show the exact number of likes you had. It only said for example âMarĂa and others liked your photoâ without giving an actual number. This lasted for a few days and then was reversed. I doubt likes will be removed, they are essential for analytics.
it was reversed??
becausee I am not from Canada idk
Yeah, they tested this for a few days and then it went back to normal.
I didnât realize they only did this in Canada⌠Iâm Canadian, with a phone purchased in Canada but currently live in states. I was using US wifi while this was happening. So I thought everybody was affected.
And your guys or friends told you that its reversed right? (I mean obviously you canât see it because you werenât effected by the test)?
What do you mean? - I was affected by the test!
I described my experience. As I said above, you could still like photos, but it wouldnât tell you the actual number under the photo. Youâd have to go and count the likes yourself. This lasted for a few days and then they reversed the update and now itâs showing the number of likes.
okay my English isnât that good so sorry for confusing u
No worries 
I doubt theyâll remove the likes.
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Only if they want to shoot themselves in the foot. Just imagine the small influencers loosing the âhypeâ about getting an X amount of likes for the picture they posted as no one can see it apart from them. That would surely kill their engagement and reduce the time people spend on Instagram so I seriously doubt they will get rid of the likes.