Ask Brand Equity: Should I Hide Likes on Instagram?
According to an ExpressVPN survey, 86% of adults confirmed that social media affects their moods and directly impacts their happiness.
As it can be seen, these mood swings are a threat to your mental health conditions. It has become necessary to tackle these situations so that people don’t quit social media and save their mental health from being affected.
A solution is proposed to help solve these problems: hide likes on Instagram. With the new feature, Instagram allows you to hide likes on their posts, and you are probably wondering about using it.
But don’t know what will be the consequences you will have to deal with if you do so. Will it make your followers unfollow you and portray a bad reputation of your profile? Will it affect your business, and will you have a loss of customers?
This new feature has split the internet into two groups. One is finding the feature useful while the others are finding this feature a bell of negative impact on their business and causing losses.
Let’s find out what is the purpose of hiding this feature and how it can impact your account and brand.
Purpose of Hiding Likes on Instagram
The CEO Adam Mosseri, 2019, explains that the primary reason for introducing this new feature is to remove the pressure off young people and teenagers and allow them to focus on connecting with their loved ones.
Mosseri is trying to make Instagram a safe place for its users, and hide like feature is a positive step towards achieving this goal. There were tests conducted in 7 countries to check the reliability of this feature and how it affects Instagrammers.
Fast forward to 2021, it was rolled out as an option for worldwide users. So, do the likes data get completely deleted?
No, Instagram allows you to hide likes from all the posts in their feeds or only hide like count on their own Instagram posts. This means your followers will not be able to see likes on your posts, but you can still view them.
Boost Creativity
The new feature helps promote creativity as there is no race for getting more likes from followers. The hiding-like count feature allows you to be self-expressive and share your unique content with the followers.
You can now focus on making your content appealing and not just go with what works for your audiences. With no pressure, go on to show your creative skills, and don’t about how many likes you get.
When you know there is no one to look after how many likes you have on your Instagram posts; you can relax and feel free to post whatever you want. Thanks to Intsgaram, there will be no more judgements on the basis of likes.
Original Content
Before posting anything on Instagram, we think about getting more likes and achieving more followers. For that purpose, we search through the web for some catchy captions for our posts. We use internet searches, add quotes and elements by copying and pasting.
By using this hide-like feature on Instagram, worrying about likes is out of the equation. However, we feel free to produce original content by our capability and then post it on Instagram without taking hours of web search to get the perfect captions and hashtags for our Instagram posts.
The validation we want to achieve becomes irrelevant when our followers cannot view the number of likes we have on our posts. This way, you can start to make your content better daily and magnetize more customers to your businesses.
Removes Competition
It is normal to feel competitive when getting more followers and likes on your social media posts. But this validation drives a craving for competing and losing yourself, which is where mental health gets affected.
Hide likes on Instagram so you can escape this vicious cycle and stop entertaining your followers to be the best. Shift your focus from likes and use your creativity. Look into connecting with your loved ones and viewing content for your entertainment.
Quality is More Focused than Quantity
The primary thing is to consider the quality of your content posted on Instagram profiles rather than the number of likes their post gets. When likes are not hidden, and posts are not getting enough likes, it can be concluded that the post’s content is bad or poor quality.
This impression can make small businesses lose profits, and content creators may not get business orders. Ultimately, this can greatly affect how things work for Instagrammers, influencers, and content creators.
Nurturing Healthy Environment
Some influncers on Instagram are seen to hide their likes. The reason most of them recorded is to nurture a healthy environment and community on their grids.
This showcase that hiding likes can result positive if you are up with the positive approach. Another reason influencers are using this feature is that their followers still have the option to view “who has liked the post?” That said, the option is partially gone.
Brings You Mental Peace
Hiding likes will put your mind at ease and remove anxieties that occur due to the arbitrary numbers of likes on your posts. This stress-free social media posting will help you work in peace and improve your artistic side.
Your organic followers (liking your content for who you are) will follow you, increasing engagements. With this feature, you will not be on your feet all the time, viewing anyone who likes your posts or who doesn’t.
Keeps Everyone on the Same Page
Switching on the feature to hide likes on Instagram creates a sense of equality amongst the Instagram community.
All small and large companies are brought to the same branding level and opportunities to get good business deals. This improves engagement amongst the Instagram community, which converts into company sales.
Enjoying Life
After posting anything on your Instagram feeds, you get curious and spend hours waiting to see how many likes they get on their content. This unhealthy habit deprives you of enjoying your life and focusing on important things you have to do.
Now we can say things can change for the better; as Instagram hides the likes feature. You can continue enjoying your life without tracking other’s like report.
Instagram is trying to achieve an environment without the pressure to become the best popular among the crowd. It wants the app to become a station where people enjoy being connected to their friends and family and keep posting on their feeds about their lives.
Some Drawbacks of Hiding Likes on Instagram
While eliminating likes may be advantageous for some, several factors, particularly from a commercial standpoint, may suffer if an influencer or small business owner chooses to privatize this data.
The way things work on Instagram for influencers and marketers may change, and to overcome the loss, they might have to use different tactics.
Raise Doubts About Products or Service
The audience or viewers prefer following pages that show transparency in their business dealings. Hiding likes from the audience will make them doubt your products and services.
In contrast, the number of likes shows them your brand’s popularity, confirming that your products are authentic and your content original. The customers lose confidence in your brand, and they feel like they are being deprived of the real story.
Similar to how some people find it susceptible when comments are disabled, there is a potential that customers will feel uneasy if likes are made private. There’s a chance that followers may instantly believe that hidden likes indicate the content is flawed.
However, asking your followers about their feelings about hiding likes is one approach to being aware of their emotions. This way, you can retain their trust and hide your likes without hurting your brand’s reputation.
Impact on Business Deals
Mostly marketers and advertisers seal business deals to influencers depending on the popularity of your brand. But with numbers of likes being hidden, popular businesses may lose potential customers.
Large companies consider likes on Instagram as the number one factor influencing them to collaborate with another business or establishment. While they consider other factors, such as click-through rates and SEO traffic, likes are seen as the primary factor when judging a brand.
On the contrary, this can help small businesses and startups to be on the same page as large businesses and provide them with better opportunities for business deals.
Spamming with Posts
With no likes count, users might start posting irresponsibly on Instagram with unfiltered content on their profiles. Before this, they used to limit their posting to a sane number of posts to get followers and likes.
With the introduction of this new feature, they might start posting uncontrollably whenever they want, which may negatively impact their followers.
Multiplied Fake Likes
When transparency gets out of the question, it may become easy for a large community to get away with buying fake likes and followers for their posts.
This mean more people can create a fake image of their brand, and no one will be able to question their authority until Instagram finds ways to catch these fraudulent accounts.
Switching to Other Platforms
We all know it is true that Instagram would not allow metrics to be seen by accounts, and then people might switch to other platforms. In fact, businesses may rely on other social media platforms to get the right information on brands and influencers.
This may affect Instagram’s popularity, and probably users will stop using it and get directed to other applications.
Likes are just addicting, and the dopamine people get from someone hitting like on their posts makes them use the particular app more. But if that feature is removed, people might lose interest in the app and switch to other apps.
Figure What Works for You
Right now, the hiding likes on Instagram feature is still new for many users. No one has used it enough to know the consequences. Since hiding likes is still a novel idea for many, there isn’t enough evidence to determine if brands should do it.
There haven’t been many experiments on this new feature. However, it appears that most people—businesses and content producers alike—have decided to keep their likes public for the time being. It can take time before people feel confident getting rid of their Instagram likes.
But if you’re considering keeping your preferences a secret, evaluate what’s most important to you. In this case, a trial run would be beneficial.
Turn off likes for a week or two and record changes. Try figuring out what will be best for your business and choose the option that provides you with the highest profits.
Are you more willing to publish fresh content now? Have you seen a drop in sales or likes? Has the way you interact with your followers changed?
Answer these questions to yourself to better able to decide for yourself and your business whether switching to an Instagram without likes is the best course of action or not.
Related article: How to Get More Likes on Instagram?
