Do we finally have an answer to one of the biggest problems the influencer community is facing? Maybe so. #paid published findings of a study they’ve been working on that examines the effects of removing likes from Instagram. In other news, London International Awards is now honoring influencers with their own award and we look at how Climate Change is affecting the internet.

How Removing Like Effects the Influencer Community

A little background on the study. The study was done over about a month’s time with 193 Canadian influencers taking part. Remember back when Instagram first announced they would be doing these tests? Canada is the first country out of the list to test the new no-like structure.

We know one thing, influencers are torn on whether to be pro or anti-likes. The market has their guesses on what the effects of removing likes may be, but no one is certain. With this study from #paid, we now have evidence to go off of. So, what exactly is the study saying?

Photo from #paid study

Half of the influencer community is seeing their average likes fall

1/3 of the community is experiencing fewer comments on their posts

Half of the influencer community agrees that the growth of their follower counts have slowed down

Looking at these numbers tells us that removing likes is a horrible idea. There is a perfect quote within the study that says, “There is a relationship between Instagram’s big three numbers: likes, comments, and follower counts. Drastically change one, and the others are affected.” We could not agree with this more. The tests happening in other countries are showing the rest of the world that removing likes is affecting other aspects.

The study brings up an interesting psychological pattern that is seen in everyday users. Here’s an example. A 19-year old is scrolling through their explore page in a world where the platform doesn’t have likes. They are more likely to NOT like, comment or follow someone because they can’t see how popular they are. If someone can’t see how well you’re doing as an influencer, they’re less willing to support your content.

What’s the upside for businesses?

The push to remove likes can actually help businesses make money. It forces them to look at their own advertising strategies and work at them so they fit in today’s marketing landscape. The influencer community doesn’t offer much of a profit for businesses, but if they were to use their own marketing channels the reward can be greater.

Win An Award For Your Hard Work

London International Awards is opening up their award show to the influencer community. There is a range of categories from beauty to travel to building things. LIA has recognized that influencer marketing and brand deals had a huge impact on 2018, and now they want to award the hardest working influencer.

LIA is accepting entries until August 15th and judging will be from October 1st till the 10th. Winners will be announced on November 4th. To learn more and to enter go to liaawards.com.

Rising Sea Levels Will Kill The Internet

Trust me, I know this is a little out there but it’s true. Most people don’t think that climate change would affect the internet but it can, and more importantly, it will. The internet isn’t like iCloud, it has physical infrastructures all over the world that help connect and keep the internet running. All those cables and power centers just happen to be right in the path of rising sea levels.

From the scraps of information researchers can find, many of these infrastructures are situated on coastlines. Not very smart if you ask me. Scientists have taken a map of where these infrastructures are and placed a map of rising sea levels over it. Guess what they found. And I quote, “Within 15 years, thousands of miles of fiber optic cable—and hundreds of pieces of other key infrastructure—are likely to be swamped by the encroaching ocean.” Sounds like a huge problem to me.

Moving thousands of miles on infrastructure is a huge task. Even if we were to accomplish such a feat, there is still a bigger issue of rising sea levels.

Before this article, I never made the connection between the two entities. It’s definitely an odd thing to think about. Who knows the kind of impact this would have on the internet. Would it shut down a website or two or would it have catastrophic effects on the internet (including social media) as a whole?

 

Read last week’s news, here.