In recent times, during the course of development of apps, there has been a big emphasis on Search and discovery of contents. Therefore, Instagram is one of the social media apps that include the search and explore feature in its app. Furthermore, Instagram search is a great way to search for different contents of your choice.
Being featured as an individual or a brand serves as a great way to enhance your success and exposure on the app. However, Instagram search increases the chance of meeting users who may have not seen you or your content. Also, there are several ways to go by the search and explore the bar to get the best of it. Basically, ranging from finding the trending hashtags, engaging your followers and finding more people.
Particularly in this post, we shall be discussing how to use the search and explore feature on Instagram. Basically, this is to help users both individually and business wise.
How does Instagram search and explore bar works?
We need a proper understanding of what to search and explore on Instagram. When you launch the app, tap the magnifying glass icon just at the bottom left corner of the screen to go to the search and explorer bar. Simply tap the search bar to start searching. Here’s a quick list of what you could search :
- Top (i.e posts with the highest interaction and engaging ratio).
- People (i.e other users on Instagram ).
- Tags (i.e hashtags).
- Location (i.e location tags) .
Therefore, users can also search on the Instagram website too. Basically, the only difference being that you can’t search for keywords by their categories (i.e people, tags or location). Furthermore, you can go about it by simply adding the @ for people (e.g @wizkidayo) or by adding the # for hashtags (e.g #10yearschallenge).
When you tap on a username, a list of suggestions will appear based on your search input. More so, when you tap a user handle, it takes you directly to the user’s profile. When you tap on a hashtag or location tag, you’ll see photos of the hashtag and location content .you’ll see nine top posts followed by a list of photos starting from the most recent photo.
How do I get featured in the Instagram search and explore bar?
Getting featured on the search and explore bar can help expose your brand or profile to people outside your followers base, it could also help in getting your posts to be more engaged and gaining more followers. To get featured in the Instagram search and explore bar, you should try these ideas :
- Add nine hashtags and a location tag
For your posts to appear on a search result, you’ll need to add hashtags or locations to your posts. To add a hashtag to your post, simply add # to the relevant keyword. (#WCW)
Therefore, to add a location to a post, simply add any of the suggested locations or you can search for your location by tapping add your location while you are composing your post.
- Post nice, relevant content.
I thought it might be worth mentioning to you that in a search result, the top nine posts take the most prominent space. So if you’re going to post something and you wish to allow it to feature on the Instagram search bar, hashtags and locations will not be enough as you have to make sure your post, photos, and videos are highly definitive, precise and clear.
- Go live.
Although, having your video appear by going live might be much harder than the others mentioned earlier, but it’s worth giving a try.
The featured live videos are the ones trending due to the engagements, number of viewers and the proximity to the user’s location.
Deleting Your Instagram Search History
Instagram allows deletion of prior searches. However, if you don’t want them appearing on the search section anymore.
- Tap on the profile icon on the lower right corner to access your profile.
- Click on the gear icon to access the options and scroll down.
- Tap clear search history. Confirm you want to delete by tapping I’m sure.
Finally, after going through all these processes, the user can then go back to the home icon and your prior search history will no longer be available.
