An influencer’s take on Instagram’s removal of likes
This past summer, Pam Palines, senior in the College of Business Administration said she lived in New York with her cousin and his family while pursuing an internship. When Palines returned to school, she said her cousin’s 10-year-old son reached out to her via text message.
He said, “You have so many followers!” Palines recalled.
At almost 4,000 followers on Instagram, Palines said she personally doesn’t feel like she has a lot of followers, but to a kid, it’s comparing hundreds or thousands of followers to just a couple.
Palines said her cousin’s son continued to compare Palines’ Instagram followers to his own TikTok followers.
“He was like ‘I made a TikTok, but I only have seven followers and I don’t get any likes, so I don’t know if I’m going to make anymore,’” Palines said.
Hearing her cousin’s son say this made Palines sad and concerned about the younger generations that is obsessing about becoming TikTok famous, she said.
“It shouldn’t be all about likes and fame,” Palines said. “Younger generations are so dependent on likes, and they base their value of worth on how they perform on social media. It’s just sad because I know he’s not the only one who thinks that way at all.”
In wake of Instagram choosing to remove likes from their platform, Palines said from a personal standpoint, it’s a good idea to get rid of likes. However, as an influencer, Palines said removing likes is not that simple.
“I use (Instagram) for two purposes,” Palines explained. First, Palines said she uses it for personal use, just as anyone else uses it. But earlier this year, Palines said she got hired to be a college music rep for Warner Music.
As a college music rep, Palines said she utilizes Instagram to help promote Warner’s artists by posting pictures and videos on Instagram with certain hashtags and tags to create reach, engagement and awareness for Warner’s artists.
From a business standpoint, Palines said it’s going to be harder for companies to use influencers for brand deals and promotions because they look at followers and likes.
It’s also going to make it harder on brands to figure out which accounts are actually influencers and are best to work with because there’s people who buy their followers and likes, Palines added.
According to a 2018 study from influencer marketing platform HYPR, 64% of influencers admitted to buying likes.
Supporters of Instagram’s change hope that influencers who buy their likes and followers will be weeded out, since likes no longer matter.
Users and companies can also look at the comments on influencers’ photos to test an influencer’s credibility and engagement with their audiences.
Another problem as a result of Instagram’s new change, could be influencers posting less and losing interest in their followers, said Joyce Wolburg, Associate Dean of the College of Communication.
“If you can no longer like (an influencer’s) particular post, then they have no feedback in terms of what the audience is experiencing,” Wolburg said. “I can see that that creates a lot of ambiguity and confusion for the influencers.”
Wolburg said Instagram should be mindful of what influencers and followers are experiencing after the new change.
Are they going to lose followers? Are they going to have more people on Instagram? Are the influencers posting less if they’re thinking, ‘What’s the point of this if I don’t know if people like what I’m doing?’ Wolburg wonders.
“I think that would take a lot of the drive away from the influencers,” Wolburg said.
Influencers who rely on brand deals for income and critics of the change argue that removing likes will negatively impact influencers.
In the countries that removed likes during the early rollout of Instagram’s change, influencers with 5,000 to 20,000 followers saw the number of likes they received fall from 3% to 15%, a study from analytics firm HypeAuditor found.
Palines said Instagram’s new change hasn’t personally affected her yet.
She said numbers are a concrete metric to base things off of and send to labels and artists. “They use that as a base number to make sure that someone who posted had a good reach,” Palines said. “If you think about it realistically, companies like to have concrete data, and that’s the data you’re getting.”
Palines said she predicts that some companies are going to sell that data in the future at high prices.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Instagram removed likes for personal reasons because Instagram has turned into a huge platform for influencers, Palines said.
“Let’s be real,” Palines said. “At the end of the day, the way I look at it (is), you want to be ethical, but businesses are about making money and making profits.”
Palines said it shouldn’t always be about making money, but that’s how it works. However, she said she hopes Instagram was primarily motivated by the mental health aspect to make the change.
From a personal standpoint, I think the change is going to aid in making mental health better because social media can be a detriment to it, Palines said.
“I definitely think (Instagram has) had its impact (on my mental health),” Palines said. “Throughout the years especially, since I’ve grown up with it, it’s definitely had its toll.”
In general, Palines said in some ways, Instagram has influenced her body image and the way she sees herself. She said she also gets stuck in a hole of mindless scrolling where she’ll get to the point late at night where she asks herself, “What am I doing? I’ve been on here an hour or something.”
Palines said Instagram is her app of choice and she feels like she uses it more than the average person. “Sometimes I get to the point where I need a break (from it),” Palines said.
Palines said her breaks normally last for a month or a few months. During thee breaks, Palines said she still checks Instagram, but not as much as she would if she were having to post on a regular basis.
Instagram, users only highlight the high points of their life, which is something people forget about, Palines said. As a result, she said it affects the mental health of users.
“Some people choose to show the lower points because they want to keep it authentic and stuff which is great, but even for me personally, I post what I want people to see,” Palines said. “I’m not trying to make another image of myself, but if I’m down in the dumps one day, I’m not just going to start posting me crying.”
As an account that features exciting concerts and numerous photos with famous artists, Palines said she’s had comments from her followers about how all of her posts seem like she’s having the best time of her life.
Palines said she responds to these comments by saying, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m completely blessed to have my life, but I show you the fun parts; the highlight reel of everything.”
With the removal of likes, supporters of the change hope that removing likes will encourage users to post more authentic content and fewer perfect posts.
“I definitely think the removal of likes (could help solve this problem) because there will be less pressure on (users to post perfect pictures),” Palines said. “I think with the removal of likes, it will be less of a burden on the person who posted.”
Nowadays people get so caught up on ‘Oh no they unfollowed me’ or ‘I didn’t get enough likes on this post, so I should delete it’ but it shouldn’t be like that, Palines said.
Palines said that’s what she told her cousin’s son.
“I said ‘Keep making (your TikToks) because you want to’,” she said. “‘It’s not about the likes and it’s not about who follows you because the numbers don’t matter. This is supposed to be something you do for fun.’”
