An insight into social conformity

Social conformity. One of the most powerful subconscious influences and psychological currents we experience. As humans we ceaselessly strive for continued and seamless integration into various social environments in which we find ourselves.

And it’s no different when we’re interacting online. Often – and without realisation – we conform to ‘liking’ online posts because we see many others have clicked the red heart that props up the post from the left bottom corner of the screen. For this reason, thousands of med-level social media ‘influencers’ are re-evaluating their business models as we speak. With social media titan Instagram removing the likes count from posts in a bid to ease social-confirmation driven anxiety and depression, the perception of popularity of such ‘influencers’ and social media personalities that rested on their ever-growing likes tallies below monomaniacally structured bikini pics has taken a heavy blow to the undoubtedly sun-kissed torso.

Online personalities have seen their engagement levels diminish rapidly. Without knowing whether the latest post was popular our influencer-following contemporaries we have become apprehensive and twitchy, nervous to formulate our own opinion without external input of other users. The social media magnate’s power move has critically altered the road to achieving sustained online engagement. Digital marketers can no longer take the approach of pleasing the masses to incite to motivating users to follow their account. They might now adopt an opposite approach.

If users no longer view what others have viewed, they will be forced to view what speaks to them as an individual. What might result? Likely many robot-like social stars will fall, and new niches will arise who speak to the unaccounted-for Instagram users. Overarchingly, digital marketing will become more specialised and tailored to target audiences, which will – I think – change the platform of social media for the better.