How often do you check Instagram Explore? Have you thought about considering it in your content strategy? No matter how many followers a profile has, among the more than 1.2 billion Instagram users, there will always be millions of people who still don’t know it but who may be very interested in its content.
That’s where Instagram Explore comes in: the best space, next to Reels, to discover and be discovered on the social network. The tab is one of the biggest showcases the social network offers, and any content can appear there and reach the right people, significantly boosting your brand profile. For More information, Click Here
What is Instagram Explore?
Unlike the Feed, where the top priority is to show content only from those you follow, the Explore Instagram tab shows content from profiles you still need to follow but that the algorithm understands may interest you. The idea is to present news and provide the discovery of new profiles.
Therefore, each user has a unique Explore feed that can constantly change based on their interests and the main interactions performed by each person on the social network.
What appears in Instagram Explore?
The selection of posts is unique and varies for each user according to their interests. Still, some Instagram formats have a guaranteed space in the Instagram Explore tab, as it is in the platform’s interest to promote this content.
This is currently the case for Reels and Feed videos, which have an exclusive Explore space for all users. The content displayed here will vary, but the format will appear to you.
How does the algorithm choose the contents of the Explore tab?
Just as Main Feed and Reels have different algorithms, Explore also uses its logic within Instagram. In that case, as the focus is on recommending news, the Explorar algorithm gets a little closer to that used in Reels.
We explain, in detail, how each of these algorithms works in this other article.
In the case of Explore, according to Instagram itself, to determine what kind of posts you will see there, the algorithm analyzes posts you have liked, saved, and commented on in the past and what is shared between them.
4 Criteria to Appear on Instagram Explore
1. Information about the post
Instagram looks at how popular a post appears to be. To do this, it considers how many people like – and how quickly – and comment, share, and save a post. These signals are much more critical in Explore than in Feed or Stories.
2. History of interaction with the person who posted
In general, the posts shown are from profiles you probably don’t know, but once the user interacts with a specific post, Instagram understands that you might be interested in other things she shared.
3. User activity
The signals analyzed here are based on the content you’ve engaged with by liking, saving, or commenting on and how you’ve interacted with other Explore posts in the past.
4. Information about the person who posted
This counts how often people have interacted with that account shown in Explore over the last few weeks to help find engaging content from various people.
Why invest in Instagram Explore?
The most significant advantage of investing in more appearances on Explore is that your content reaches even more people and is recommended to users who still need to follow you or even know your profile but might be interested in what you share or sell.
That is, it can help you to:
- Get followers
- Improve reach
- Have more engagement
- And even increase sales!
It’s the same idea of investing in Reels, which promotes a greater reach of your content and delivers videos to a broader range of users, including those who follow you and those who still don’t.
6 tips on how to get featured on Instagram Explore
1. Know your audience
First and foremost, Explore is interest-based. Therefore, for your content to be recommended and reach the right audience for your profile, you need to know your target audience well and what content they like to consume.
Study your niche well, what kind of posts the competition or other brands in similar segments are creating, and use inspiration when producing content that will be attractive to that same audience.
Tip: Create a secondary account that you can use to further study Instagram, including the Explore tab. Try “manipulating” your Explore on this account by liking content from certain subjects, niche creators, or brands to see what comes up. Good ideas can come from there; you will understand the algorithm better!
2. Using Reels
As Reels videos currently have their guaranteed prominent space in Explore, investing in this format will double your chances of having more reach on Instagram. The format will make your profile impact people who still need to follow you, as this is also part of the Reels algorithm.
3. Encouraging Engagement
Among the criteria of the Explore algorithm, engagement plays an essential role in what will be shown to each user. After all, Instagram also selects Explore recommendations based on what your followers or people with similar interests to yours are enjoying there.
In addition, there is always that user who may have already seen your post on Explore, engaged (liked, commented, saved) but never followed you…. Yet.
So always remember to encourage interaction in your posts. Bet on CTAs (Call To Action) in your captions and make posts with content that will help you improve your engagement rate on Instagram. This will increase your likelihood of being recommended to more users who might be interested in your content.
Among the main engagement types you should consider are likes, comments, shares, and saves. Think about this when putting together your planning and create content aimed at these actions, such as tutorials that can be saved or shared, interactive posts with games, challenges, questions to be answered in the comments, etc.
4. Publishing at the best time
This tip will also help you with the previous topic: engagement. Find the best time to post on Instagram and schedule your posts for times when your followers are most active.
This “boost” at the busiest times will help you ensure good engagement in the first few minutes and increase your chances of having your content recommended to other users who are also active at that time.
As Instagram also makes recommendations based on the behavior of users with similar interests, it is likely that your target audience has a similar routine and habits and is active on Instagram at more or less the exact times.
5. Using Hashtags
The Instagram algorithm also analyzes the hashtags of posts a user interacts with to base the recommendations in Explore. If you follow a specific hashtag or tend to engage a lot with posts with the same hashtags, the social network will recommend posts from other users that are using the same terms, which may interest you.
To increase your chances of appearing on other people’s Explore, consider appropriate hashtags that relate to your content and niche and use them in your posts. This will make it easier for the algorithm to recommend your profile to users who still don’t follow you but already interact with the same tags in other posts.
6. Using Instagram Shopping
In this case, the idea is to secure a space in the Explore tab of Instagram Shopping. If you have registered products and a Store on Instagram, be sure to create content regularly using tags and other resources such as Guides and Collections, which are also often recommended in this space and can help you reach more users who are “exploring” the Feed there in search of new brands and products to consume.
