The Instagram Metric Creators Really Like; Twitter Teases a Buy Button

Instagram has made it official: it’s sticking with likes and letting users decide whether to see or show this measure of popularity rather than getting rid of it altogether. Today I’m going to dive into why that decision may not really matter. The short version? Instagram’s most avid users have already moved on. 

Other metrics—views, comments, saves and shares—have emerged as more important to social media personalities and the brands that pay them for advertising products. “Likes are becoming less and less powerful,” said Brooke Sabey, 22, who posts photos of daily life to her 31,000 Instagram followers. 

That’s partly because tracking the number of likes had taken on toxic importance for some of Instagram’s young users in recent years, prompting the Facebook-owned app to consider dumping like counts altogether. What’s more, an obsession over getting likes had started to stifle posting or at least distort the spirit of the app.