Instagram’s New 'Map' Experience Brings New Discovery Elements For Businesses & Creators
Source: Instagram
Instagram rolled out a new Instagram Map experience, where users can explore popular locations around them and filter by categories such as Restaurants, Cafes, Sights, Parks & Gardens, Hotels, and Bars. They can access Map by tapping location tags for Feed or Stories or searching for a city or hashtags in Explore.
Each location has its own profile page, which displays top posts, real-time Stories, and Guides tagged with the location. From there, users can save locations to view later and share with their friends via DM.
With Map, Instagram brings new discovery elements for businesses. Enhanced support for locations through curated, user-generated content increases businesses' chances to be discovered in-app. Creators often will tag relevant locations in their content, especially when sharing content shot at businesses like restaurants and cafes. This helps businesses increase their social proof, an incredibly powerful form of marketing and the core of influencer marketing.
It also benefits creators by increasing visibility and reach when their content appears as a Top post or in their Guides on location profiles. Guides, in particular, are notable since up until now, they haven't been that useful for creators. With integration in the search experience now, creators have more reason to invest in sharing Guides.
Map brings new considerations for influencer marketing on Instagram. It encourages more businesses to partner with local influencers so they can get in front of users who are trying to find new places. Also, marketers should ensure their creator partners use location tags for their content to optimize content performance, especially when running geo-targeted campaigns.
The launch comes shortly after Google's Senior Vice President of Knowledge and Information, Prabhakar Raghavan, said that younger people are increasingly turning to Instagram and TikTok for discovery instead of Google Search and Maps due to social media's more immersive experiences.
As Google sees social media platforms as a potential threat to its businesses, look for it to start making its products more immersive by integrating user-generated content.
