But maybe we don’t need Likes anymore. With the decrease of organic reach “community managers” are using Likes, reactions, shares and views as their main metrics. It is possible that Facebook and Instagram are onto something. Given lower engagement rates they could be doing themselves a service by dropping these metrics before businesses lose faith or have further questions of their platforms.
As Facebook and Instagram keep growing (this without any third party verification of their actual numbers) and continue to compete with traditional media channels for reach, perhaps this will be the new currency they use. We know that video views are a little sketchy already and there has been the question - What is the value of a Like? This being said, maybe Facebook and Instagram have outgrown small to medium businesses in favour of chasing large corporate budgets, resulting in a change or approach. In essence change is good and as the largest social networks they need to adapt.
It will be very interesting to see if user engagement changes if those ‘Like’ numbers are removed. Are individuals more attracted to a post or page because it has lot of Likes, or are they truly interested in the content of what is being published?
Engagement has always been the better measurement, and personally I would like to see the measure of ‘Likes’ gone as it really does not mean anything to anyone except maybe our lovely influencers. What would happen to all the models of Instagram and Facebook? Perhaps they’ll need a change in career with no filters!