Instagram search bar allows you to organise accounts, audio, tags, and places in lists in order to make your UX easier and manageable. However, the search bar does more then you may think and there are also plans of creating more improvements to it.
When using search, you are ultimately sending a signal out to Instagram highlighting the most relevant accounts for you. Being specific in the beginning is important as it will become easier the next time you are looking for something similar. Not only is search important but also who you follow and what appears on your feed. Your feed is related to all things of interest to you and therefore Instagram as a whole, becomes an automatic mood board which is updated regularly of everything you enjoy and look for.
By inputting text in the search bar, Instagram looks at popularity signals. This means any account which has the greatest number of clicks, likes, shares and follows will more likely to appear first. This relates to how you can rank yourself higher in the search bar for when a friend and family member or fan tries to follow you.
The first thing you will need to do is make sure your Instagram handle and profile name on your page are relevant to who you are. The name you introduce yourself as is the name that would be ideal to use on your Instagram. This not only creates your identity, but allows people who are searching for you, find you quicker. Your bio is the next important feature when someone is looking for you on the search bar. Using keywords and adding a location in your bio that is appropriate to your feed makes it easier for people in your area to find you. Lastly, when posting an image or video on your profile, make sure to create hashtags on your image, not in the comments. Many people use hashtags in the comments, but this does not give you any reach or rank you to the top of the search bar. Using these few steps will give help navigate people to your profile.
Instagram have plans to develop the search bar tool to better the functionality of it and expand the platform. One of the ideas they are working on is to add other languages in the future other than English. They also plan to make search results better for exploration showing you related photos and videos when you search rather than text. This broadens your search if you don’t have an exact username or hashtag in mind when searching for a certain topic.
