The major changes coming to Insta as battle continues with TikTok

Instagram has announced some new changes that will help the social giant close the gap with rival app, TikTok

The social media company, owned by Facebook, plans to more prominently display images in the search tab.

In a statement, the platform states that search on Instagram sorts through millions of accounts and posts to help you browse your interests.

“From nail art to interior design to dinner recipes, Search is a place for discovery and inspiration.”

Instagram head Adam Mosseri stated that the company has used keyword search as a way to offer visual results — certain terms can pull up pages of suggested images — but Instagram’s new plan will give those more prominence.

In an IGTV, Mosseri explains that searching with a term like “space” will pull up suggested photo and video results along with traditional accounts and hashtags, encouraging more exploration.

The visual results will still live behind a tap of a keyword, but they should be more prominent and common.

How Insta ranks ‘Search’ results:

Search is built to help you find accounts and topics of interest.

It’s different from Feed, Stories, Reels and the Explore features due to the fact that your input helps Insta figure out what to show you.

Your search tells Instagram what you’re looking for, and it’s noticeable when the results aren’t useful.

The company says ‘it’s important for them to get this right – so they try to manage search results by what’s most relevant to you — whether it be a close friend, a creator you love, or ideas for desserts.‘

“Let’s say you’re interested in finding pictures of space after seeing the blue moon. When you tap the search bar on the Explore page, the first thing you see is your recent searches. As you begin typing “space,” we show you accounts, audio, hashtags, and places that match the text of your search. In this case, results like @space and #space show up because “space” appears in their name.”

In addition to the text you type into search, Instagram uses information from accounts, hashtags and places — called “signals” — to rank your search results.

Instagram says, the most important signals that they use, in order of importance, are:

• Your text in Search. The text you enter in the search bar is by far the most important signal for Search. Instagram try to match what you type with relevant usernames, bios, captions, hashtags and places.
• Your activity. This includes accounts you follow, posts you’ve viewed, and how you’ve interacted with accounts in the past. Insta usually show accounts and hashtags you follow or visit higher than those you don’t.
• Information about the search results. When there are a lot of potential results, Instagram also look at popularity signals. These include the number of clicks, likes, shares and follows for a particular account, hashtag or place.

So how does Insta plan to make Search even better?

Instagram is soon launching a series of improvements designed for inspiration and discovery.

Those changes will make Instagram Search more than just a way to find accounts and hashtags.

The keywords you can use to search for content is also expanding

Instagram currently focuses on getting keyword search results right in English, and will add support for other languages in the future.

“We’re also making search results better for exploration. For example, your search for “space” will show you space-related photos and videos, too. This is especially helpful when you don’t have an exact username or hashtag in mind when searching for a certain topic.”