When you search for something on Instagram, you probably are looking for photos and videos related to the keyword you typed in. Instagram after all is a photo and video sharing social media platform. But your results page is really more of accounts or hashtags related to it and you’ll have to click on the latter to actually see visual results. Instagram will soon bring changes to how it surfaces results and that includes bringing a visual grid related to your search keywords.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri explains in a blog post and a video post that they are bringing “a series of improvements designed for inspiration and discovery,” in the search results and how they surface them. When you search for something using a word like “space” will surface photos and videos related to it alongside the traditional accounts and hashtags. However, you still have to tap on one of the keywords (not a hashtag) displayed to show you the visual results but it should be more prominent now.
They will also be expanding the number of terms that your search will pull up. For example, if you search for sushi, you’ll also see other terms like sushi roll or sushi cake. For now they’re focusing on getting expanded keywords results in English and eventually add support for other languages as well. Mosseri didn’t give a timeline as to when this improved search results will roll out but the fact that they’re showing it off already means it might be soon.
The blog post and video also explains how Instagram shows you search results and it’s all about “signals”. The text that you input in the search bar is of course the most important and they try to match it with relevant usernames, bios, captions, hashtags and places. The second signal is your activity on the platform like accounts you follow, posts you’ve viewed, and accounts you’ve interacted with. The last is popularity signals including number of clicks, likes, shares and follows for a particular account, hashtag or place.
If you also want your content to show up in search results as well, you need to put in the relevant keywords in your bio, location and in your captions on individual posts as well. There’s also the reminder that the hashtags need to be in the post and not in the comments. Hopefully we get the improved search results soon so searching on Instagram will become more visual, as it should be.
