How to find a specific post on instagram
Instagram is Making it Possible to Search by Keyword
Instagram is upgrading its search functionality and letting users find content by keywords for the first time.
Until now, users have only been able to search for content by hashtags, location tags, usernames, and profile names.
That left a swath of unsearchable content in the caption area.
According to a report from TechCrunch, users are now be able to search for posts using keywords that may appear in photo & video captions.
There’s a lot left to be understood about Instagram’s new search functionality, but I’ll round up the information that’s been made available so far.
How Does Instagram Keyword Search Work?
Instagram keyword search works by allowing users to type in a keyword such as “home office inspiration,” rather than being limited to a hashtag like #homeofficeinspiration.
Search results should then surface posts about home office inspiration even if they’re not specifically tagged as such.
It’s not exactly known how Instagram determines what a post is about without relying on hashtags.
It’s known that Instagram will use captions to surface posts for keyword searches, but even there are still many questions.
For example – is it exact-match only? Can Instagram’s algorithm understand synonyms? Is there any AI or machine learning involved to help the algorithm recognize what’s depicted in an image?
A company spokesperson tells The Verge that Instagram considers “a number of factors” when returning search results. This includes the type of content, captions, when it was posted, and more.
The spokesperson confirms Instagram uses machine learning to “find the highest quality content that’s relevant to you.” There’s no mention of whether that also involves image recognition.
Instagram search results are limited to certain terms only, the spokesperson says:
“The search is limited to general interest topics and keywords that are within Instagram’s community guidelines.
”
Potential For Instagram SEO?
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this update, at least for marketers and search enthusiasts, is the potential for Instagram SEO.
Previously, the only way to optimize Instagram posts was to include relevant hashtags and perhaps a location tag (if applicable).
Now there’s a whole new algorithm for marketers to understand and optimize for. For the first time we can actually have discussions about Instagram ranking factors.
Before jumping into that, however, it may be best to wait and see how this change impacts user behavior. We don’t yet know how users will adapt to this new way of searching for posts on Instagram.
Will they adopt the use of keywords to find visual content similar to how people use Pinterest? Or will Instagram users prefer using tried and true hashtags?
It would be a promising sign to see a marked increase in user engagement on posts following the launch of keyword search. That could be an indication keywords are being used to help users discover content they wouldn’t have found otherwise.
One thing that’s for certain is Instagram users are averse to change, as evidenced by the uproar to the recent UI update.
There’s much less discussion around this update so far, which is either an indication that users haven’t noticed it or it hasn’t rolled out to everyone yet.
Instagram keyword search is said to be rolling out today in English to all users in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Sources: TechCrunch, The Verge
Category News Instagram
Can You Search Within Your Instagram Photos? Here Are 4 Sneaky Shortcuts
Life
by Ayana Lage
Shutterstock
If you've been on social media since your teenage years, chances are you shared some relatively cringe-worthy things back in the day.
Whether you simply want to see how far you've come or find the perfect #ThrowbackThursday picture, looking at old posts can be a lot of fun. But if you're searching for a specific post, you might find yourself wondering if you can search within your own Instagram photos.
Unfortunately, Instagram doesn't offer a native search feature for old content or photos you posted on the social media platform. Instead, you can only look up account names, hashtags, and places that have been geotagged. If you have thousands of Instagram posts because you share every single detail of your life on the app (guilty!), finding the post you're looking for can take some time, especially if you don't know when you shared it. If you don't want to sit down and scroll all day, understandable — you can get creative with some workarounds, although they aren't super quick fixes. Still, these solutions are slightly easier than mindlessly scrolling and squinting at image previews, and they can save you some time as you try to find an old Instagram post.
1
Search Hashtags
Ayana Lage
This suggestion works best if you use niche hashtags on your posts — for example, I used the same hashtag on all of the pictures I shared from my wedding, so it's easier to look up that hashtag instead of scrolling through my feed. If you've posted using popular tags, though, this isn't the fastest way to search old posts.
2
Use Instagram Insights
If you have an Instagram business account, you can use Insights to narrow down old posts. Go to your profile, open the Instagram menu in the upper right corner of the screen, then tap Insights. From there, tap "See All" under posts. You can sort posts by how many comments and likes they've gotten, which can help you find an old post that received a lot of engagement relatively quickly.
3
Check Instagram Memories
Ayana Lage
This won't help you if you're looking for a specific post, but if you simply want to see old things you've posted, checking Instagram Memories is a quick way to do so.
Open the Instagram menu on your profile, and tap Archive. From there, select Stories and scroll to the bottom of the screen — you'll see a post that you shared on this day in previous years.
4
Scroll On A Computer
This may seem silly, but it can actually make things easier. Constantly scrolling on your phone is a pain and bad for your thumbs. Using a computer with a mouse can make your scrolling experience feel a little bit more pleasant. Just log in on the Instagram desktop website, and you'll find your post in no time.
Unless Instagram integrates a feature that lets you search and sort your pictures, finding older posts will always take a little while. Just know that the satisfaction you'll feel after discovering what you're looking for will be worth it.
Search Instagram like a pro
English
Screenshot of Instagram.
Editor's note: This OSINTCurio.us Technisette project post is based on a presentation on Instagram search from the 2019 Netherlands Conference on Open Source Data Search.
Before we start
While you don't need to have an Instagram account to search for data, it can come in handy to track certain hashtags and profiles. nine0005
You can create an account through the mobile app or website. To register an Instagram profile, use your email or Facebook account.
For most of what I'm going to show you, you don't need to login. If you need to log in to the page, click the small blue “Log In” button ( log in ) in the upper left corner of the screen.
Search string
Enter any Instagram profile at random to find the search bar at the top. You do not need to be logged in to do this. nine0005
For example, Instagram.com/search gives you a personal profile, but you'll see the search bar appear at the top of the screen.
Search for people
Searching for people on Instagram may not be as effective as it seems at first glance. For example, if I search for "Mark Zuckerberg", I will get a random profile first and only then the real profile of Mark Zuckerberg.
Google or any other search engine, in this case, may be more effective. Use, for example, advanced Google search (Google Dorks):
site: Instagram.com “mark zuckerberg” .
Left: Instagram search results. Right: Google results.
There are quite a few tools that provide the ability to search for content on Instagram.
Picdeer.com simplifies the user search process because hashtags and users are not mixed up in the search results as they are in a regular Instagram search. Here you will see a list of hashtags on the left and a list of users on the right. nine0005
Similar resources also include sites pictame.com and sometag.com.
Search results on Picdeer.com.
If you are looking for a specific type of user, such as people belonging to a particular group or religion, you might be interested in what people write in their biographies.
Searchmy.
bio is a search engine that will only search in the bio section of user profiles.
You can sort the results according to different criteria: “most followers” ( by the number of subscribers ) or “most relevant” ( the most relevant ) or add hashtags to the search query.
Screenshot of Searchmy.bio.
When you find the profile you are interested in, you will find several useful extensions, starting with Helpertools for Instagram for Google Chrome.
In the example below, I used Mark Zuckerberg's profile, @zuck.
Helpertools for Instagram is partially free. I haven't used the paid version yet, but the free version has a couple of really cool features. In particular, you can compare two profiles with each other. These profiles must be opened in order for Helpertools to demonstrate its magical power. Depending on the number of followers/followers, this may take some time as Helpertools pauses in order to prevent Instagram from detecting the tool's suspicious activity.
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But my favorite feature is the “Business account” section.
In Mark's case, it is marked as “false”, which means that Mark does not have a business account. Having a “business account” ( business account ) is not exactly the same as having a “verified” ( verified ) account. You can switch from a regular to a business profile by yourself by changing the settings, and Instagram does not check any information.
Results from Helpertools for Instagram.
nine0002 Mark's account is not a business account. So let's find another example that is one.For example, an account for a cheese shop in the Netherlands. Take a look at the profile: there is no contact information here.
Let's look in Helpertools to see if this page is a business account...
Yes, this is a business account!
We can even see what category they have chosen for their profile. But wait, this is just the beginning! nine0005
To get more information, you will now need to create a profile or log into your profile on a mobile phone (or a good emulator) connected to the internet.
Now open the mobile application and log into your account. (I used the android app). When you go to the profile of a cheese shop, you will see several buttons under the inscription bio. One of them is “Contact” ( contact ). If you click on “Contact”, a pop-up window will appear and give you all the contact information associated with this profile (which is entered by the account owner). Thus, we see an email address that was not visible before! nine0005
There is another button here: “Call” ( call ) and it will give you a phone number!
So we got an email address and a phone number.
Remember: if we were to explore the profile through the website, we would not see this information!
1. Log in through the mobile app. 2. Find the desired profile and check the “Contact” tab ( contact ). 3. Press “Call” ( to call ) to see the phone number or “Email” to see the email address. nine0005
Statflux.
com will help you analyze your profile. In addition to information from the profile itself, it will also provide additional statistics, for example, the average number of likes and comments.
It will also give you the posts with the most likes and the most comments.
When you're looking at a profile with a lot of posts and don't know which one might be of interest to you, statflux.com can help you figure it out.
nine0002 Examples from @zuck on Statflux.com.
Enlarge your profile photo and download images from your account
In Instagram, the profile picture is cropped (taken in a circle). But sometimes you want to see the whole photo, because that way you get a little more information about what's going on in the background, or, for example, see who else is in this image.
There is a way to get this from source, but the DownAlbum extension also allows you to do this. nine0005
DownAlbum can help you increase your profile picture not only on Instagram, but also on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Ask.
fm and Weibo.
Once the extension is installed, a “Download photo” button will appear right below the profile picture ( download photo ). Click on the link and a new page will open with an enlarged profile photo that you can use to explore further.
Example from DownAlbum.
DownAlbum also gives you the opportunity to download photos to your computer - just right-click on the enlarged image and save the photo.
Another possibility is the website instasave.io. Enter the username of the profile you are interested in and click the “download” button ( download ) under each photo to save it.
Both of these functions will help you download images to your computer one by one.
nine0002 But what if you need to download all the photos in your profile? To do this, there is an extension for Google Chrome called Downloader for Instagram + Direct Message , which can help you download many photos.
When this extension is installed, you will see a button in the top right corner.
Select the rightmost button to download the entire profile. Make sure you have downloaded the entire page to download all materials. As you can see in this example, Zuckerberg has 141 posts, but this tool shows that there are only 24. If you scroll down the page, you can download more photos. nine0005
And one more thing: don't forget about the “Tagged” section ( search by tags ) on Instagram! To do this, you need to log in, but sometimes this gives you the opportunity to explore many other images on the topic. The “Tagged” section under the bio, next to the “Posts” section ( publications ).
Shown on the right: Downloader for Instagram + Direct Message.
Instagram Stories
Instagram “Stories” ( and Stories ) are short videos or photos that users can edit by adding stickers, text, color, and GIFs.
(If you want to learn more about the stories, check out this article from Buffer Editor Ash Reid.) nine0005
Usually stories are displayed for 24 hours, but you can "highlight" them so that people can see them longer. Such highlighted stories (“highlight”) can be categorized.
You can tell if a profile has stories by looking at the profile picture. If there is a colored circle around it, then there are stories in the profile.
If you want to see these stories, you will need to login.
Left: @zuck's profile has no stories. Right: @bbc profile has stories. nine0005
Sometimes a profile has these highlighted stories that are categorized. You will see these stories right below the bio.
Click on a category to view stories.
Under bio you will find highlighted stories categorized.
Search for stories
Stories can only be searched if they are tagged with a location (geotag) or a hashtag.
You can search for stories in the web version; if you search for a hashtag or geotag at the top, you will see a round photo in a colored circle.
Click on a photo to find stories that match that specific tag or location. nine0005
Instagram search results.
You can make it easier to find stories by using the Downloader for Instagram extension in Google Chrome.
When set, a small icon with Instagram colors can be seen at the top right.
Click on the logo to open a new page where you will see a menu as shown in the screenshot; now you will be able to watch your friends' stories, their online broadcasts, location, as well as the search function. nine0005
I searched for the hashtag #Amsterdam and chose one of the options: with a small flag at the end.
Search results from Downloader for Instagram.
If you click on search results, no stories are displayed. Click on the icon with a black eye, then they will immediately appear. With the arrows (left and right button), you can switch between them.
The user who uploaded the stories is shown on the left (shown in blue in the screenshot).
And also very useful: Downloader for Instagram gives you the option to download one or more stories related to the same hashtag (the feature is circled in red at the top left).
Download stories using the buttons in the top right corner.
Keyword search
If you're not looking for hashtags, but just words used in posts, Instagram is probably not the best tool, as you can see in the screenshot example below on the left.
For this, it is better to use Google search or any other search engine. nine0005
For Google, use the search operator Inurl:instagram.com/p/ “keyword” , where the word “keyword” (keyword ) is replaced by the word or phrase you want to find. For example, I took “dinner time” ( dinner time ).
Left: Keyword search on Instagram. Right: Keyword search on Google.
Now you can see that one of the results contains the words “dinner time”, while the phrase “dinner time” ( dinner time ) is not used as a hashtag here.
Therefore, if you were to enter these keywords in the Instagram search bar, you would not find this post.
Google search result.
Search hashtags
In the search results, check more than just the first few photos. These will be "Top" ( most popular ) photos, but they won't always give you what you're looking for. Be sure to scroll down and check out “Most Recent” ( newest ).
To search by hashtags, remember to use a symbol (eg #osint).
And one more thing: there are many websites that will help you search for hashtags on Instagram. For example, pictame.com and hashatit.com.
Instagram hashtag search. Scroll down to “Most recent” ( newest ).
Hashtag tracking
When you find a hashtag and want to follow it, make sure you are logged in and click on “Follow” ( follow ) to see new posts that are associated with that particular hashtag.
How to follow a hashtag on Instagram.
Download posts with selected hashtags
Downloading posts with the hashtags you need is very easy if you use the Google Chrome extension Downloader for Instagram .
Open the page to the extent you need to download and use the extension to download the posts associated with the hashtag. nine0005
Download posts with specific hashtags using “Downloader for Instagram”
Search by location
You can search by location using the search bar at the top of the website. You will be able to identify the location by the icon in the form of an inverted drop.
Select a location to see what stories and posts have been published from that location. Moreover, in order to choose a geolocation, you yourself do not have to be physically located in this place. nine0005
Please note that the user can specify any location, and this does not mean at all that he really was there. So a photo of me standing in front of the Grand Central Station in Amsterdam could be geolocated as Times Square in New York simply because I told Instagram that the photo was taken there.
If you want to include your real location in your photo, you must give Instagram permission to use your location data. nine0005
Search results by location on Instagram.
Are you not sure if Instagram has the place you are looking for? Or do you not know the correct spelling of a geographical name? Check out Instagram.com/explore/locations. Below is a list of countries. Select the country and city you are interested in.
Filter your results by country and city to see what places are available in a particular city.
Search for previously published posts by location
An Open Data Research (OSINT) enthusiast shared this video with me on how to find Instagram posts by location within a given time period. I have to admit that this is quite difficult, but although the video was made back in 2017, this method continues to work in 2019! Watch the video here and the script in Python here .
This video explains how to calculate the date you are interested in. Once you have a date, you can search for the location you need. nine0005
Look at the URL; at the end you add: ?max_id= followed by the number you calculate.
For example: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/3001373/times-square-new-york-city/?max_id=1817012758118400
Scroll down to the “Most recent” section ( newest ) - it now shows older posts.
The photo on the left is dated August 27, 2011, but it appears as the first result in the “Most recent” section ( newest ).
That's it!
These were some basic Instagram search methods.
Of course, there are a million other ways, methods, websites, extensions and scripts that you can use to make your Instagram search easier. If your favorite method is not listed in this article, please leave your comments below or email our editor at [email protected]! This way we can all learn from each other. nine0005
Are you ready to learn more?! Open Part 2 (Part 2) on how to search on Instagram!
This article originally appeared on OSINTCurio.
us and is reprinted here with their permission.
The OSINTCurio.us project is an open source intelligence news source that offers blogs, how-to videos, webcasts and videos, and a podcast every 2 weeks. This project is led by a community of OSINT experts, some of whom are known only by their nicknames (like @Technisette) and others by their real names, including journalists such as BBC and Bellingcat investigative Benjamin Strick. nine0005
How to see Instagram statistics and what it means
How did followers come across your account? What posts do they most often save, which ones do they forward to friends, after which ones do they most often decide to call or write? What cities do they live in? How old are they? What days of the week and what time of day are they most active on Instagram?
Statistics Instagram allows you to find out this most valuable information and, thanks to it, work more accurately with your audience and increase sales.
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First of all, statistics must be activated
To access statistics, you need to switch your account to a business profile. Click on the menu (horizontal bars) in the upper right corner, select from the list "Settings" , then "Account" and "Switch to a professional account" .
More on this: "How to create a business account on Instagram."
Statistics will be collected from the moment you switched. nine0005
Post statistics
Now under each post we have a sentence "View statistics" . By clicking on it, we see several numbers.
We had information about the number of likes and comments before. But now we also have "airplane" - the number below it shows how many times your publication was sent to direct to other people. And also "flag" - it signals how many times your post has been saved.
"Profile visits - 9» .
What do these words and numbers mean? The fact that 9 people who viewed the publication wanted to go to your profile.
Is it good or bad?
It may be different. This could mean that your subscriber thought:
“Wow, what a great post. I really wanted to buy from them. I’ll go see what kind of company this is, maybe I’ll ask them a couple of questions about the product.”
Or vice versa:
“Who wrote such nonsense? When did I manage to subscribe to this? What for? I’ll go look at their profile, maybe I’ll remember why I signed up, if this is not something promising in the future, I’ll unsubscribe as soon as possible. nine0005
What is reach on Instagram?
It shows how many people actually saw your post. For some, this figure may be shocking. Did you think that you have 10 thousand subscribers, and statistics show that each of your posts is seen by no more than 1 thousand people? Yes, it happens, and very often.
Coverage from 30% to 60% is a good indicator for commercial accounts, 10% -15% is very common. nine0005
By "swiping up" (i.e. tapping the stats with your finger and dragging it up the screen), we see more stats.
What does it mean, for example, if you see such data in the "Interesting" section?
"Subscriptions - 2". This entry indicates that two people who saw your post decided to follow your account. That is, they were not subscribers before. How do you know how they came across your post? The answer may be further. nine0005
"Scope - 1026" . The post was seen by 1026 people, we have already talked about this. Curiously, more than half of these people (52%) were not our subscribers. How did they see our post? We will also look for the answer to this question in the following data.
"Impressions - 1597" . This entry means that the post was shown 1597 times. And Reach showed that our post was seen by 1,021 people – a lot less.
How can this be? Very simple. The number of impressions is almost always greater than the reach, which means that part of the subscribers saw your post two or more times. nine0005
"From the Main - 770" . That is, 770 people saw your post just in their feed. These are your followers.
"From hashtags - 582" . 582 people came across this post thanks to hashtags. Here is a possible answer to the question of how 52% of people who were not our subscribers found our post, and where these two new subscribers came from. All of them came to you by hashtag, and two of them became interested in the account and stayed. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for sure, we can only guess by comparing the data on hashtags, subscriptions and the number of people reached who were not subscribed to you before. nine0005
"From Profile - 7" . These seven first came to the main page of your account, and from there they already went to the post.
In what cases does this happen? For example, another Instagram account linked to you, people came to your main page, and from there they went to the post. Either the link to Instagram was on your website, or customers saw the name of your account in the office. There may be many options. The main thing is that people first went to the profile, and then they came to this particular publication.
"From Another - 240" . This line tells you the number of people who came to your post from other sources. For example, someone sent them a link to this post in Direct or shared it in another way (in an email, via messengers, on a website), or your post was saved, and then they looked at it again, and this re-view was counted in the line " From the Other."
This way we can see the statistics of any post that was published after switching to a business profile. nine0005
We also have the opportunity to find out the statistics of the account as a whole.
Account statistics
To see the account statistics, we again need to go to the menu (horizontal bars in the upper right corner) and click on the line "Statistics" .
Here we see tabs "Content" , "Actions" and "Audience" .
Content tab
In this tab, by default, we are shown our posts and stories sorted by reach. First, the most popular - that is, those who received the largest coverage, and then in descending order. nine0005
We are also told how many posts and stories we had in total in the last week (45) and how this compares to the previous week (5 more).
We can sort both posts and stories by different parameters and for different periods. By clicking on the button " All ", we get the opportunity to select posts with the most likes - for this we need to select the line with the word "Like marks" . Or the one with the most comments. Or separate those posts, after viewing which readers started calling you - for this you need to select "Calls" . Or the ones that reposted the most.
You can also see the most successful posts by the sum of all these indicators - likes, comments, calls.
To do this, select the first line - "Involvement" .
We can also make a selection for different periods - a maximum of 2 years, a minimum of 7 days. And see separately the comparative indicators of photo posts, video posts, carousels.
The same with stories. We can sort them by ostentatious indicators - "reach", "clicks to the site", "calls" and others, and also make a selection for different periods, but the maximum possible period in the case of stories is 14 days. nine0005
Action tab
In this tab, you can see how reach, impressions, and other important indicators have varied over the past week - the number of visits to the profile, clicks on the site, clicks on the "Getting Directed" button.
Featured
Featured shows our total reach and impressions for the last week.
We see that the coverage was 3854 people, and it is very much reduced compared to the previous week. nine0005
Total impressions - 17698 people, and also a noticeable decrease compared to the previous period.
Also on the graph, we can see which days the coverage was more or less.
And by pointing a finger at this graph, we see specific figures - one and a half thousand coverage on Monday and Wednesday, almost the same on Tuesday, on other days much less.
Interactions
In the "Interaction" block, you can see how many visits to the profile, clicks on the site from the profile, clicks on the button "How to get there". nine0005
We are also shown a graph of the distribution of this activity during the week. We see that the most actions were on Wednesday - 57 pieces.
To see specific numbers, touch this graph with your finger.
"Audience" tab
In this tab, we can see how the number of your subscribers has changed over the past week, in which cities and countries your subscribers live, how old they are, at what time they are most active.
Growth
This tab gives us information about the number of subscribers.
In particular, about how many people have unsubscribed from us, how many have subscribed, and what the result is an increase - it can be positive and negative, when after all the subscriptions-unsubscribes, the number of subscribers has decreased.
In our example, 12 unsubscribed, 16 subscribed, the final result is plus 4 subscribers this week.
Below we see a graph of the number of subscribers. We see a failure on Saturday. We can press our finger on this failure, and we will be shown more detailed information about it. We see that on Saturday, December 7, three people unsubscribed from us and no one signed up. nine0005
And if we want to find out what kind of publications led to such a result, we can click on the button "View publications" and we will see just posts and stories for December 7-8 and statistics on them. In this way, you can understand which publications readers do not like. Although in our case the numbers are too small to speak of conclusions.
Rather, they are within the bounds of statistical error.
Top locations
Below we can see information about the cities in which our subscribers live. nine0005
As expected, the Moscow children's center, whose account we are considering, has the majority of subscribers from Moscow.
And by clicking on the button "Countries" , we will find out from which countries in what proportion we have subscribers. Also, most are expected from Russia, but there are also from Kazakhstan, the USA, Ukraine and even Brazil.
Age range
In the next section, we can see what age men and women are in our account.
We see that our subscribers are dominated by people aged 25 to 34 years, slightly less women and older men - from 35 to 44 years old. nine0005
Interestingly, our account is also followed by schoolchildren under the age of 17 and older people over 65. Where Instagram has gone!
Gender
Here we are shown that 71% of our subscribers are women, only 29% are men.
