Why Instagram Likes never mattered in the first place

Read in German

If you are active on Instagram, you have probably noticed that the likes are no longer visible in some countries. This selective testing phase is designed to encourage higher quality content to be posted. Many debates have arisen because users do not know what to expect now. Does this measure take the pressure of influencers or even private users? Will it be harder for companies to figure out if an Instagrammer has an authentic account -  how tell if there is no follower-to-likes ratio measurable anymore? The likes are still visible to the profile owner, but will anyone still bother liking anything?

For my part, I am very glad that the likes will be invisible, because in reality they are completely unimportant. In this post, I explain to you why I think that.

Likes as an authentic proof for quality?

Let's take ourselves as an example: We follow many accounts, including families, friends, bloggers and stars. There are usually several hundreds of profiles that we have subscribed to. When we open the home page, do we like everything we see? Are we scrolling through all the posts and leaving likes everywhere? Do we always comment directly on what we think? Do we answer all the questions we read in the descriptions?

So my honest answer to that is no. With friends and family, I always leave a Like, sometimes a comment. But if we are honest, we do not always have time to like every single picture that we find beautiful or special, let alone to comment. For this reason, videos are getting more views and giveaways have a lot more comments than other posts. Anyone who has a business account even sees its reach and knows, that the like-to-view ratio has a big gap.

So your subscribers do not think your content is bad and they do not like it that much - they're more focused on priorities: better scroll through everything until you're up to date than wasting your time with likes and comments. But this happens rather unconsciously and completely automated. Now,  of course there are many of us who like to engage with the content of others. The few seconds or minutes it takes are not at all a waste of their time. Everyone handles their social media differently and that's fine.

So what is important on Instagram?

In my opinion, your reach is the most important thing on Instagram. Neither the number of followers nor the likes determine how popular your photos are. Often you can see how high-quality and unique pictures have hardly any likes and comments, although it is easy to see that there is a lot of effort behind the design.

In the end, it's important that many have seen the picture, not how many likes were left. How often do we see a pretty picture and we do not press like at the moment, because we prefer to take a screenshot, press the save button or send it to our friends.

I'm a cat lover and I like every single cat photo / video on Instagram. Do I like each of these pictures / videos? No definitely not. It is enough for me to have seen it and to have enjoyed it. I do not think at the moment that it needs a like of mine and I don't need to express it with an interaction.

And what about the social in social media?

It is called social network, usually the social comes to light when a scandal goes round (a celebrity shows him-/herself naked), a will benefit from it (giveaway) or a controversial issue is addressed (Stefanie Giesinger travels to Malawi and is accused of the "White-Savior-Complex"). However, beautiful and artistic pictures get their major attention with views.

With these words, I finish this topic and am happy that the likes will soon disappear.

What do you think about the change on Instagram? Are likes important for you?