INSTAGRAM'S NEW TRIAL

In light of Instagram's new temporary trial of removing likes, I've been thinking a lot about the potential ramifications of their new move, and I've compiled some of my thoughts below. 

The official explanation for Instagram's new no-likes trial was to create a less "harmful" and "competitive" environment for younger users, especially with regards to the negative social effects (1,2,3,4). Recently, although this has passed me by quite a bit - teenagers nowadays tend to gravitate towards Instagram rather than Snapchat and to no one's surprise, statistics showing Facebook coming in at last in popularity (8). While I have no objections towards the potential benefits towards younger users, especially when we observe the obsession around clout, and branding for these teenagers/young adults, there perhaps may be an argument to be made towards the 'no likes' = no pressure argument that Instagram is using (5).

In the future, perhaps Instagram might even see an upward trend among an audience who like the lack of pressure and social obligation and will choose to use Instagram as their way of having social media without any of the added stress of keeping up with appearances. 

With these statements, we can't make any hardline assertions on whether or not Instagram (as a faceless corporation owned by facebook) is 'moral high-grounding' by prioritizing teenage users mental wellbeing as a priority,  since this is impossible to verify. However, we can state that in light of this move towards no-likes, there has been an increase in advertisements on the main page - which are what yield the most revenue on social media.

Both online and in person, there has been a lot of discussion from jaded Instagrammers who have criticized Instagram's algorithm change, which has been continuously tinkered with for a while, but received a lot backlash around January 2019 (14, 15). This isn't limited to 'influencers' - these are original content creators involved in fashion, costume design, fine art and photography. What this meant for frequent users of Instagram (friends of mine who have around 10k-15k followers), was that their likes went from 7-9 thousand likes per post, to 600-1000 likes per post, which is a drastic drop. The general ratio of likes per post now sits between 25%-10% of number that you have from followers - but taking into account bots and other people who aren't following the accounts, 10% seems like a reasonable estimate to me. 

In turn: those friends of mine who were relatively successful on Instagram (they were offered sponsored posts and other 'influencer' perks, like discount codes or what not to promote related goods) are now suffering from problems such as a vast drop in lack of engagement and likes on their content, even on similar content - the only difference with the posts being published before or after the January change- and I believe this dissatisfaction with Instagram's new system has been one of the main reasons in the decrease in overall app usage, especially by content creators.

If we look at blogposts made by those who were/are affected (10, 14), we can surmise that around only "10% of your followers are able to see your posts" (14). In my own experience, even other popular lolita Instagrammers that I've interacted regularly make polls on whether or not people were able to see their posts due to the drop in likes (spoiler: usually the answer is no, but at least stories make up some of the viewership because it's mostly chronological). In addition, the theory of the 'shadowban', despite (12) claiming that it isn't real, on some level shows the failure in Instagram's ability to effectively run the application for its users - apps should be user friendly and accessible.

So what this shows it that: we're seeing a huge change in what is required to be successful - not only is it about making good content, but according to The Lovely Escapist, you have to follow these specific tactics (14).

• When you post, engage/comment back within the first 60 minutes to help drive engagement. 

• Do not edit your post’s caption or location tag for 24 hours! 

• Do not delete your post and repost it. 

•  Although you can use up to 30 hashtags in a post, this can now be picked up as spam. 

What does this mean?

If we direct the conversation towards Influencers: there is a huge discussion for these people who depend on Instagram's likes and engagement as their means of income (6,10) and this change may potentially risk a huge financial loss for these Influencers should Instagram choose to implement this.

If Instagram had considered the users, and the success of those people on their platforms, I imagine they would not have changed the algorithm in the first place - and as I have mentioned before, it is most likely that their choice most likely relies on what brings them the most revenue.

Therefore, things that will garner Instagram more revenue, such as ads, will probably becoming more popular, such as asking for those influencers to start paying to boost and promote their content so they're seen more often, give them much more revenue than a user orientated set up would - e.g the old Instagram, without ads, where you could reach all the followers you had.  

With all the statistics, all we can really do is speculate/theorize what Instagram will do with this trial. Currently, this has been rolled out in Canada, Australia and various other places, yet it is only a trial and Instagram will most likely respond to the feedback around it (1,2,3,4). Personally, I've noticed other design changes that Instagram has made, minor things like making following and followers a smaller addition to the main profile, yet that hasn't been implemented on a worldwide scale. In regards to those minor changes, I think opting for small aesthetic changes will actually make a huge difference in regards to how we see the platform, but I imagine this will be rejected in favor of the ad-heavier upgrade. 

But - how would it really affect influencers and influencer culture? In a world where people are paid up to $250,000 dollars for a sponsored post (although smaller influencers are usually paid in regards to how may followers they have [11]), most of these are to do with the relationship between how many followers and likes influencers usually have - if your like and follow ratio is high, it means that there's less chance that you've bought your followers, and as such, you're legitimately someone that brands can invest in to yield greater monetary return. More discussion at (6) may give a wider scope of ideas with how brands/influencers may choose to go forward.

It is possible to buy both followers, and likes, but in the case that the 'no like' policy does directly affect how brands start to engage with influencers. If brands cannot see how many likes each post garners, how do they determine how profitable it will be to invest in said influencer?

Some alternatives have been suggested, namely to view their engagement rates, but I believe this will have to be directly informed with how people view and interact with Instagram - depending on whether or not enough users are going to continue using the app (12). In addition, (13) talks about the rather common inability for Instagrammers with 2 million followers unable to sell 36 T-Shirts. While in part I am convinced of the user's own failure at producing relevant and suitable merchandise for her fans, I also believe that this might indicate some sort of inability for Instagram's platform and success to translate outside of Instagram - does this indicate that Influencers are losing traction?

Another consideration is how our society continues to treat influencers. (16) suggests that there is some sort of trend towards choosing smaller influencers because they show more authenticity and closer connections, yet I feel that these influencers will suffer - due to the general decrease in popularity of IG amongst a younger audience, and the growing disenchantment with Instagram's algorithm, the lack of activity and clear markers of success will directly hamper smaller accounts (such as those 10k-15k follower accounts), and take away opportunities from them.

Without a visible indication of growth, engagement and overall marketability with smaller influencers, it feels that Instagram has becoming a graveyard for small influencers/original content creators, despite its insistence of equality and illusion of fair chances for their work to be recognized and rewarded. 

References: 

1. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/instagram-hide-like-counts-in-test
2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/instagram-tests-removing-number-of-likes-on-photos-and-videos
3. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/30/tech/instagram-hiding-likes/index.html
4. https://www.designboom.com/technology/instagram-likes-less-harmful-new-features-05-03-2019/
5. https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/teens-like-everything-on-social-media-now?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app 
6. https://www.reddit.com/r/BeautyGuruChatter/comments/cevse5/how_will_instagram_not_showing_likes_affect/
7. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/teens-face-relentless-bullying-instagram/572164/
8. https://mashable.com/article/instagram-more-popular-than-snapchat--report-teens/
9. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45950635
10. https://www.brendansadventures.com/is-instagram-dying/
11. https://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2019/05/how-much-do-influencers-charge/ 
12. https://jumpermedia.co/2019-instagram-engagement-rate-report/?fbclid=IwAR3gN9r2ZzMrEYmv-J0U996z1g7I7JxMysry03iFUtrSUMSPheZ6b3gopwo
13. https://www.businessinsider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-followers-cannot-sell-36-t-shirts-2019-5/?r=AU&IR=T
14. http://www.thelovelyescapist.com/2018-instagram-algorithm/
15. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/01/how-instagram-feed-works/
16. https://www.businessinsider.com/brands-turning-to-micro-influencers-instead-of-instagram-stars-2019-4?r=US&IR=T