Brands that have integrated influencers into their strategies are now digging into more sophisticated metrics

Last year Instagram began experimenting with putting the like counter behind the curtain, hiding them from followers but keeping them visible to account owners. Instagram started concealing likes in markets such as Canada, Australia, Brazil and Japan from May.

By eliminating a key measurement in the infinite online popularity contest, Instagram has led influencer marketers to rethink their strategy. The Facebook-owned company dominates the global $8 billion influencer marketing ecosystem — 79 per cent of brands leverage the photo-sharing app for influencer campaigns, more than any other major Western social media platform. Influencer spending is expected to increase to $25 billion by 2022, according to Forbes

Looking at data beyond likes

Likes are increasingly seen as a “vanity metric”, and savvy marketers have already begun asking influencers for more meaningful data. That includes follower demographic data such as location, age and gender, as well as weekly impressions and the number of accounts reached.

Brands are also focusing more on Instagram Stories, which as of January, had over 500 million daily active users. Performance metrics in Stories have always been private, but it’s become an important format for influencer partnerships, with brands now asking for indications like swipe-ups, sticker taps and story completion rates to judge how content is doing.

This is only going to accelerate. Now, brands look at engagement and make a judgement on their own, whereas without public likes, they’re going to ask for talents’ stats.

There is a risk that without likes, less sophisticated brands will simply default to the visible follower count as their guiding metric, says Sean Spielberg, chief executive and co-founder of the influencer analytics tool Instascreener. “In addition to fake followers, many services sell fake likes and comments too, so a high number of likes is no longer a guarantee that an influencer’s content is being seen by real people.”

Focus on finding influencers that fit the brand

Brands need to consider not only how many people they reach, but also who they reach. Someone with a significantly lower following could be followed by all the right people — creatives, editors, other highly influential people — and working with them would be more impactful to a blogger with millions of followers, if I may. A clothing brand seeking trade press coverage will do better employing micro-influencers with a fashion editor following than an influencer with a large but more consumer-oriented audience, many influencer marketers say. Universities and colleges seek the same with former politicians, or former European commissioners, rising very often the interest of the academics and other stakeholders.

Additionally, labels should seek to understand if an influencer’s personal brand fits with what they are trying to achieve. Instagram earlier this year activated a tool that allows clients to boost the posts of their paid influencers, but the best partners are organic. Sidhu, for instance, has worked with a hijabi influencer who is regularly approached by bikini brands for paid partnerships, a product she would not promote. “It’s [as if] they don’t even look at her profile, just her numbers,” she says.

The removal of likes is also an opportunity for labels to focus on new talent. It will require extra work but also allows brands to establish themselves as cutting-edge.

Whether Instagram opts to remove public likes or keep the platform’s profile as is, leveraging an influencer solely on their likes and subsequent engagement rate doesn’t equate a strategy. Smart brands and influencers will need to think beyond broadcasting content to the largest possible audience.

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