Will Businesses “Like” The Policy Of Hiding Likes?

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Back in 2019, Instagram began performing tests on a small subset of users to determine the experience of hiding likes on the platform, with the intention of possibly expanding the practice to Facebook. Although nothing significant has changed since the testing began two years ago, what would happen if this practice of hiding likes becomes prevalent on Instagram and Facebook? For personal users, who may just be using these platforms as a way to show off cute pictures of their kids, pets, or vacations, it may be helpful to them to have the option to remove likes. Not all users want that extra unspoken level of competition, such as, Why did my picture receive fewer likes than the post my best friend made a few days ago? But for businesses, Instagram and Facebook have become an essential tool for brand growth and customer interaction. What would the implications be to businesses if the option to remove or hide likes becomes more mainstream?

Do Likes Really Tell The Whole Story?

Just because there are thousands of likes on a given post, it doesn’t mean they are quality likes. Confusing, right? There are companies out there who have capitalized on the craze behind likes by offering likes for purchase. But some of these purchased likes may come from bots or fake accounts, offering no real tangible benefits, and in fact it may even backfire. And although this isn’t technically against legal terms, it can potentially cause the opposite effect of what you intend to do. How can this be? Well, even if a business or influencer account has only a few thousand followers, but many comments or other personalized activity each day, that is often viewed more favorably than if an account has hundreds of thousands of page likes, but only a fractional amount of daily engagement or interaction. So, although likes can be helpful if they are from truly engaged followers, they don’t always paint an accurate picture of success.

Quality Influencers And Social Media Partners Are More Than Just Likes

So, how do you know if an influencer you want to partner with has actual, measurable successful interaction with human followers, or if that influencer has purchased likes to attract lucrative business partnerships? Building a following through organic methods is challenging, and frustrating at times, but committing to providing quality content, engaging images, and on-brand marketing to boost visibility is worth it. And when deciding to partner with an influencer, you need to ensure you are aligning your brand with an ethical influencer with quality measurable statistics who will not only give you likes, but quality interaction and conversions as well.

Don’t Lose Sight Of The Importance Of Comments And Shares

Regardless of what happens with likes in 2021 and beyond, businesses who are trying to grow their brand need to remember that comments on posts are just as important, if not more so, than likes. Often users will mindlessly scroll through Instagram or Facebook, liking images or posts, but not truly absorbing the content of what the post is trying to accomplish. And that really doesn’t set any business up for a successful future. What does work is encouraging your followers, customers, and target audience to personally interact with your post by providing feedback, a thoughtful comment, or an answer to a question posed within your post. Give them an extra incentive to comment on a post by offering a special giveaway to followers who share your post, or run a contest to drum up attention. This is one of the best ways to get the right kind of attention, especially for small local businesses, rather than simply relying on likes. And by encouraging sharing of your posts, you will passively expand your reach among a diverse demographic of new potential customers or clients.

In The End, The Impact Remains To Be Seen

Overall, social media is designed to be a very personal experience. Giving users a choice of hiding likes won’t likely have a long-term impact on the use of social media as the high-visibility business tool it has become. However, it is highly unlikely that platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, built to foster personal and business interactions, would turn their back on their core audience by removing likes on all accounts. But in the meantime, it is always a good idea to focus on comments and shares to build a solid business strategy both now and into the future.

Leave Your Followers Wanting More With Engaging Instagram Content

In 2021, Instagram has 1.074 billion monthly users across the globe, according to eMarketer. And of these users, 71% are under 35, making this platform crucial in helping your business target that coveted young adult/Gen Z/Millennial demographic. What began as a simple way to share photos with friends has become an essential platform for businesses to expand their reach, create brand awareness, preview product launches, and much more. So, how exactly do you make your brand “Instagrammable”?

Visual Content Is The Real Instagram Star

Photos and video content are the main event on Instagram, and they should always be the star of the show. Your goal should be to weave an intriguing brand story with consistent posts of creative, personalized content, while striking the right balance between valuable content and filler.

When you’re creating a brand marketing strategy on Instagram, it’s always important to think about your overall long-term goals. What style and tone do you want to communicate to your followers? What color scheme do you want customers to associate with your brand? It helps to have a cohesive strategy in place to make for instantly recognizable posts through complementary color schemes, consistent filter use, and overall content tone, whether that is playful, tongue-in-cheek, or more serious.

Take a look at the photos below. What do you notice immediately?

Take a look at the photos below. What do you notice immediately?

The photos all have the same color scheme and overall tone, giving the brand consistency in style, tone, and visual appeal.

Filtering your photos with apps, such as VSCO, Canva, or FaceTune, is another essential strategy in creating brand visibility and awareness. The use of filters not only enhances image quality, but also allows you to control the images as you want your audience to experience them.

Check out the difference in the two photos below, posted by Jessica Hirsch of CheatDayEats. The before (left) and after (right) show how an Instagram filter can take a photo from drab to fab. Makes you want to eat at this restaurant, right?

Once your brand content is on point, you can further expand your social media reach with a well-executed influencer marketing strategy.

The Rise Of The Hashtag

Since it first began appearing on Twitter in 2007, the hashtag has become inextricably intertwined with social media content, and is a key ingredient in a successful Instagram post. The name of the game is creativity when it comes to hashtagging, and your goal as a company is to build an instantly recognizable, unique hashtag that will remain in the minds of your followers for the long-term.

Have fun with your Instagram hashtags! Use a play on words, tie a hashtag in with current events or pop culture trends – the sky is the limit. When your hashtags grab the attention of your followers, it will encourage them to share related content by using your hashtag, which is a great way to passively expand your brand awareness.

Personal Vibes For Days

Above all, make your content personal! Utilize both photos and videos in your posts, and even experiment with live streaming.

Use Instagram Stories to post behind-the-scenes content, whether that is your restaurant chefs making a pizza, your company participation in a local charity event, or even something fun like a video with the unofficial company pet. These types of posts are especially helpful for small businesses who are looking for a way to connect with their local audience.

Follow these Instagram strategies, and soon your business will be . . . #winning!

Boomopolis is now MoreInfluence!

We are excited to announce that Boomopolis is now MoreInfluence! We look forward to continuing the serve our customers under our new umbrella. Read the official press release below:

MoreInfluence, Inc. (a New York/New Jersey subsidiary of 35 year-old strategic marketing consultancy group RLA II, LLC) has completed a restructuring of LA based Boomopolis, an Influencer Marketing Agency. The new combined entity will operate under the MoreInfluence umbrella.

RLA II was founded by Raymond Levy, a former Madison Square Garden executive and member of the team that launched the MSG and USA Cable Networks. RLA’s focus was initially on sports media and sports sponsorship consulting and counted Major League Baseball, the NCAA’s, the Big East Conference, the NHL and several professional sports franchises as clients. Within five years, RLA II continued to evolve and expanded its focus to financial transactions, acquisitions, and operations of multi-media sports television, cable, sports marketing and “made for television programming”. This focus included initiating many new sponsorship offerings and quickly culminated in the creation, marketing and first of its kind Network Television exposure of the Celebrity Golf Association’s Celebrity Golf Championship, now known as The American Century Championship (the longest running network television Celebrity Golf Tournament on NBC Sports).  

After creating blockbuster sports television events, RLA II was instrumental in leading the effort to plan, build, market and open the $400M, 18,000 seat Prudential Center in downtown Newark. In tandem with that effort, RLA II was a part of the team that negotiated the acquisition and financing of the purchase of the New Jersey Nets, New Jersey Devils, the launch of the YES Network and securing the Naming Rights Sponsorship agreement with Prudential Insurance for the new Arena. In addition, RLA II developed the funding plans for the Arena and the Teams that played there leading up and through the construction and successful opening of the Arena in 2007 and was instrumental in developing the plan to create and launch the YES Network.

In 2008, after completing the Arena project and the YES Network Launch, RLA II immediately joined his partner, Loretta Volpe as the co-creator and co-founder of GMLV, LLC, a full service marketing agency with national clients including Barnes & Noble, Chubb Insurance, and music rights organization, ASCAP. GMLV has grown its business and now operates from offices in New Jersey, New York and Los Angeles. Levy continues to serve as a working Partner and Finance and Operations officer for GMLV.

Late last year, the RLA Founder decided to step back from his day-to-day role at RLA and brought in a new group of young executives to grow the company for the next 35 years. Their first effort in the furtherance of that goal was to build on RLA’s experience in crafting cutting edge marketing programs and offer clients marketing opportunities that are unique and still in their embryonic stages, a place RLA has succeeded in time and again over the last 35 years.

Robert Levy, with a heavy digital background honed by years of experience working at Fortune 100 technology companies recently accepted the position of President of MoreInfluence. Rob shared the vision for developing a new digital media platform and almost immediately found that opportunity in Boomopolis and Influencer Marketing. Calling Influencer Marketing, “the opportunity of my generation,” he likened its fast growth to the early stages of all new communication technologies including cable, digital, experiential, etc. “Influencer Marketing is a medium that utilizes all prior communication platforms to help clients achieve a low cost hyper efficient option to reach millions of people targeted to a specific set of demographics in an exceptionally cost effective environment,” said Levy. “Boomopolis caught our attention because of how instrumental it was in helping fuel the early growth of companies like TikTok, Pluto TV and Triller.” They’ve also worked with a wide range of other forward-thinking clients in categories such as food/beverage, entertainment, technology, retail, toys and numerous mobile apps.

Established in 2013, Boomopolis has been a trailblazer in the influencer marketing space – providing the first ever brand deals to many social megastars when they were just starting out. When few marketers were paying attention, they were one of the first companies to launch influencer campaigns on platforms like Snapchat, Vine and Tiktok. Boomopolis now works on all major social platforms, and through their network of influencers, they have access to over 500 million users in targeted demographics ranging from sports to beauty to family to technology.

Evan Aaronson, Boomopolis’ founder and Chief Executive noted “We believe that MoreInfluence’s  resources including its financial as well as its intellectual capital can turbo charge Boomopolis to the top of this emerging communication platform. We are excited to be part of this new team and look forward to the ride of a lifetime!”  

Aaronson first began his influencer marketing journey shortly after the acquisition of his previous company. It all started when his potential guesthouse tenant posted a video clip on the Vine app in his backyard, and it got thousands of likes within minutes. Aaronson was immediately sold, and within weeks, he dropped everything and landed his first paying client.

He has always gravitated toward capitalizing on trends before they hit the mainstream. Prior to Boomopolis, he was one of the early pioneers in mobile video chatting, online video content, reality TV (producer for The Bachelor, Monster Garage), rap music and music documentaries- earning one of the first platinum records for a DVD as a video producer (Warner Bros – Maybe Memories– The Used).

After attending UC Berkeley and graduating from NYU, he worked at a TV studio painting the names of producers and actors on the parking lot curbstones. This led to various assistant type positions for directors like Quentin Tarantino and Peter Bogdanovich and for shows like Married with Children, Who’s the Boss and Blossom. He soon started making corporate videos and editing actor reels for up and coming stars like Jane Lynch. For his directing debut, Aaronson’s independent feature, Nothing was one of the first mockumentaries to be distributed nationally and became one of the first long form vlogs (before the term existed). Not only did it earn him positive reviews from Roger Ebert and AOL, but it quickly became an underground favorite. In an effort to marry independent films with brands, he used his next 35mm feature, Baggage, to create Chicken Soup for the Soul home video.

As video was coming online, he was then hired to write, direct and star in a web series for one of the early dot coms (years before YouTube was created.) This inspired him to launch his own digital properties including WebShowCentral (an online video directory), Meals With Mentors (a mentor matching service), CreativeOutpost (a precursor to Etsy), and Go Massage, a wellness directory/ booking service (acquired in 2011) and a predecessor to apps like Soothe. It catered to celebrities like Miley Cyrus as well as Fortune 500 clients like Microsoft, Disney and Hilton. Through the platform, he revolutionized the rubdown by developing many breakthroughs like pay per lead and first come/first served appointment setting. Soon after its acquisition, he became the interim CEO at Face Experts/FixUp, a video chatting platform guiding users through their home repair issues.

Aaronson’s projects have been written up in Variety, Los Angeles Business Journal, Business Rockstars, the Chicago Tribune, Tastytrade and other publications. He has done public speaking and teaching engagements at UCLA, Digital Entertainment World, Digimarcon, Digital LA, Tavis Smiley Presents and other venues.

With his latest venture, Boomopolis, now becoming part of MoreInfluence, Aaronson couldn’t be more excited. “We’ve come a long way over the last 7 ½ years, and I can’t wait to see what this next chapter brings.”