(Hypebot) — Instagram and Facebook users now have the option to hide public “LIKE” counts.
Facebook explains why: “We heard from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense of what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice.”
While potentially annoying socially, “LIKE” counts are a badge of honor for many artists and influencers. Music marketers and analytics platforms incluing Chartmetric use “LIKE” as a measure of how engaged an artist’s fans are.
One often-used metric is what percentage of artist’s fans on a platform actually engaging with each post. You may have 100,000 Instagram followers but if only 100 or so LIKE or SHARE a post, your fans may have stopped paying attention.
So for most artists, hiding your like count is not a great idea. One exception might be very early in a career before an artist