Instagram keyword search is here and it has the potential to be a marketing game changer. Especially if you have a love hate relationship with hashtags.

Back in November, Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri made this announcement, “you can now search beyond usernames and hashtags for interests on Instagram.”

Not everyone had the feature initially, I have been exploring it since December and now it is available to all.

So how does this all work? Before Instagam keyword search became a thing we use to search by hashtags, for example #smallbusinessowner and any accounts with small business owner in the bio along with hashtags would be what would pop up.

Now you can search for small business owner and any keywords or keyphrases and get results of posts that include small business owner in the caption, ready for the mind blowing part, even if they don’t contain the hashtag!

This means Instagram is reading your captions, now you can be found by keywords, so it is time to start being intentional with your captions and do your keyword research.

Does this all sound all too familiar? That is because it is. Think Google and Pinterest, this is the beginning of Instagram SEO (search engine optimization). We will see if Instagram becomes a new search engine.

The question will be, will we adopt searching by keywords instead of hashtags? Only time will tell, but I for one am excited to explore this new feature further.

Time to get your keyword research done! Questions or want to chat about this new feature? Find me @sociallysavvystudio on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Drop a note in any inbox anytime!

My digital doors are always open.