Worry surrounding social media has calmed down this week. But you know what they say, it’s the calm before the storm. These past few weeks has left everyone from everyday users to influencer marketing professionals in a state of confusion. With update plans popping up every day to a new study on influencer analytics, for once, we can’t predict what’s going to happen next.

Update On The Instagram Likes Situation

Instagram put out an official tweet updating everyone on the platform hiding likes. In short, testing is being extended to these 6 additional countries:

  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • New Zealand

The account put out a secondary tweet explaining why they decided to test this feature. “We want your friends to focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.” Of course, this is all still in the testing phase but it looks like things are going pretty well. We might have this new feature sooner than we thought.

Do The Russians Have My Information?

You’ve seen it and we’ve seen it, it seemed to happen overnight. TheFaceApp aging everyone has taken social media by storm. According to UberFacts, the app now has access to 150 million people’s identity and information. This information is royalty-free and they basically can do whatever they want with it. People are highly concerned with this fact. Can they really use that information for whatever they want? The more important question is, will they?

With anything that happens on social media, there comes believers and skeptics. Some people have already put out conspiracy theories about FaceApp and others are calling its bluff. Only time will tell but there is a very small chance that something will actually happen.

Texting Your Fav Brands?

Earlier today, Business of Fashion went to Instagram to start a conversation about the new hype around brands texting their customers. Chatbots are a thing of the past. They never really worked anyway seeing as they were coding answers and not an actual representation of the brand. Apple has a new app in Beta right now called Business Chat. With it, brands can communicate with their customers just like they would if they were talking to one of their close friends.

In today’s competitive landscape, brands need to be able to establish a personal connection with their consumers. It’s not enough to send them a coupon via Gmail, they have to be able to provide appropriate assistance for whoever, whenever. Whether it is Burberry or a business being run out of a garage, providing that personal touch is what’s going to make that business stand out against the crowd.

Business Chat is available with the newest update on Apple products.

Social media

Is Instagram To Blame For Influencers Losing Engagement?

Instagram is a platform that welcomes everyone and every type of content. That includes sponsored content. Sponsored content is by far the best performing content on the platform. But what consequences does that have? Users are constantly exposed to sponsored content rather than everyday content posted by influencers. It’s a bit of a ticky situation. If influencers don’t post these sponsored posts then how will they have an income but if they post too much of it people will lose interest. This has put influencers between a rock and a hard place. Has it also contributed to the fall of engagement?

If you pay close attention you notice that sponsored posts are promoted more heavily then other posts. The algorithm seems to almost favor that type of content over any other post by influencers. Even promoted ones. There’s been back and forth whether this is true or not, Instagram says it’s not but influencers say otherwise.

Is the constant feed of sponsored content what caused engagement to plummet this past year? Does having over 500,000 users classified as influencers contribute to this?Read our other news on social media and influencers, here.