Instagram Search now available on the web [@SmartInsights Alert]

Users (and content marketers!) will now be able to search accounts, hashtags and locations without being in the App

Importance: ★★★ (For Instagram marketers and creative content marketers)

Link: Instagram announcement and examples

This feature has only recently been announced, but is now live for web users. The ability to search on the web represents the next big step towards encouraging more non-app traffic since Instagram moved from being app only to having a full-feed experience for web users in 2013.

Using a search bar in the top centre, you can now search for user accounts, browse content by hashtags or look at certain locations. This brings up a map and shows posts tagged in that location.

#Gotcha. If you're thinking  that is similar to Google search. It isn't. If you search on a topic it will just return a list of account names containing the query unless it's a place. So, if you want to be inspired by images around a specific topic for your content marketing you have to search on a relevant hashtag.

What this means for Instagram as a channel remains unclear. They could continue to move towards granting more and more functionality to the desktop web experience. This could involve allowing people to post photos in the web version. However this would increasingly mean they were competing with Facebook, which Instagram is not likely to do because Facebook owns them. Opening up Instagram to web users would bring more exposure and possibly allow the generation of considerably more advertising revenue. Yet it would also undermine Instagram’s mobile only USP. Diluting Instagram’s sense of uniqueness would risk its audience moving elsewhere, so don’t expect to get the full functionality of the app for desktop users any time soon.

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Instagram has also recently announced it is introducing new forms of adverts, as part of its efforts to monetize the platform. Read our post on the future of advertising on Instagram.