The Instagram Explore function was designed to help you discover new things. You’ll find the grid made up of photos and videos that are not necessarily people you follow. As the name describes it’s where you find new content.
To find photos and videos you might like, it looks at what posts you’ve liked, saved, and commented on.
Have you noticed that when you’ve recently liked a number of photos from a certain account, you start seeing more similar content on your explore? That’s why!
This means that if you’re interested in cooking, you might see posts about related topics, like cooking videos, and posts with beautiful shots from local restaurants.
The most important actions in Explore include likes, saves, and shares.
The most important signals:
Information about the post.
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How popular a post seems to be.
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How many and how quickly other people are liking, commenting, sharing, and saving a post.
Information about you
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Your history of interacting with the person who posted.
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Your activity. What posts you’ve liked, saved or commented on and how you’ve interacted with posts in Explore in the past.
Information about the person who posted.
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how many times people have interacted with that person in the past few weeks
The explore page is a huge opportunity for you to get in front of more people – but with great power comes great responsibility. Instagram strongly recommends avoiding potentially upsetting or sensitive posts.
We have shared a bit about how important following the Instagram guidelines in our article How The Instagram Algorithm works, and when it comes to Explore, even more so!