Social media influencers are raising concerns about the new changes that Facebook rolled out on "Likes" among American influencer profiles and pages on Instagram. They are rather concerned about how they should track engagement with followers more effectively.
According to Business Insider, creators and influencers alike pointed out that Likes on the social media platform allow them to track post engagement. With Likes being hidden, it is now harder for them to determine if their posts are doing well with users.
CEO of influencer-marketing firm Viral Nation, Joe Gagliese, noted that the new changes could give birth to more fraudulent influencer accounts on the platform. The move allows influencers to forget about the idea that likes should be in line with their follower base.
The new concerns about hiding Likes in the United States came as the latest data indicated that the global influencer economy could grow significantly within the next couple of years.
Researchers suggested that brands of various products and services will spend up to $15 billion on influencers by the year 2022. Based on the forecast, it is expected that many influencers will enter the market and new segments could pop up in the long run.
Industry experts have also expressed concerns about how the new policy could impact the influencer economy as a whole. With Likes being hidden, influencers could experience losses, no matter how big their following is.
The news also came after a new survey suggested that 50 percent of millennial consumers put their trust on social media influencers in terms of advice and recommendations on various brands.
According to Yahoo Finance, the latest study "The Influencer Report" by Morning Consult also indicated that around 72 percent of millennials and Generation Z (Gen Z) consumers follow their favorite influencers on social media.
The study further discovered that 52 percent of Gen Z shoppers are confident in brand advice provided by the influencers they follow. The numbers overtake those of celebrities and well-known faces who have social media pages.
Morning Consult vice president of content, Jeff Cartwright, explained that Gen Z and millennials follow influencers and trust them is "because they're authentic." He added that being "colloquial, conversational" adds to the recipe.
Late last month, CEO of influencer marketing platform SocialPlubli.com Ismael El Qudsi, wrote on a Forbes op-ed that the "like ban," for influencers who use social media platforms to make a living, is "like a calamity of epic proportions."
El Qudsi noted that brands should not base the success of a particular campaign on likes alone. He recommended that companies paying influencer look at other aspects to determine whether a campaign did well or on an average note.
