Instagram is beefing up its search to compete with TikTok

Summary

Instagram head Adam Mosseri says the company is looking to improve the app’s search functionality, admitting this is an area where Instagram could do more to compete. The remarks, made on a recent episode of the “Build Your Tribe” podcast, come at a time when younger Gen Z users often turn to social apps like TikTok for answers, instead of using traditional search engines. Instagram is in that mix, too, of course, but it knows its position could be stronger. “We’re … starting to invest more in search on Instagram because there’s so much amazing content,” he said. “And quite frankly, what we call content search — as opposed to searching for an account, actually searching for some type of content — it’s not very good on Instagram.” The exec noted that part of the problem was that the team working on Instagram search has been small, but Meta recently “strengthened” that team with the goal of rolling out more improvements on this front over the months and years ahead. “It’s a long road, but I do think that could also be a really good one for people who are looking for things. You can imagine, whatever you use Instagram for, it’d be great to be able to find ‘that’ more easily,” Mosseri said. “But also for creators … it should allow content to resurface so that you don’t get all the value in those first 24 or 48 hours.” The way that Gen Z and younger users search for content is something that’s been in flux for some time. Google identified how the problem was affecting its own future as a search provider when, back in 2022, a Google exec suggested that social apps like TikTok and Instagram were eating into its core business, including Search and Maps. Last fall, TikTok began to more directly compete with Google’s ad business by allowing its advertisers to target its search results page. Various market research studies have also confirmed this shift in how younger people use the internet and web search, to different degrees. In one U.S. study, for example, Instagram topped...