People are always searching for small businesses within their geographical location. For this purpose, Instagram introduces searchable location maps that will help them to do so with ease. With this Instagram maps update, you can search for well-liked places nearby and sort companies by category.
Below is an illustration of the new maps experience provided by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta: Until recently, Instagram’s map feature could only be used to locate posts that had tags for nearby locations. You can now find the official Instagram accounts of tourist attractions all across the map. To find businesses on the Instagram map, just type in the name of the city and drag the map around. You can save a place you’re interested in or follow the Instagram account to keep it in your head when you locate it.
This change encourages companies to create and sustain a popular Instagram existence. Unlike Google Maps, the locations are not user-submitted or pre-populated. As a business, your professional account should have appropriate information for the contact.
Comparing Google Business Profiles with Instagram Searchable Maps In reality, the experience of the new Instagram Maps is identical to Google Maps’ Google Business Profiles However, the experience on Instagram is somewhat more engaging. This is because it will allow you to see published visual content by the business and directly connect with them.
Even content shared by other users is visible if it has the correct location tag. Customer reviews are the only thing missing from the experience. A key addition for businesses is adding search functionality to Instagram maps. This is a result of the fact that younger internet users are increasingly using search engines other than Google.
Even Google recognizes the change in search habits. At a conference earlier this month, Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan said the following: “In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram”.
The economic case for using social media is getting stronger as social networks like Instagram and TikTok quickly become search engines in their own right. If you notice an unexpected spike in new customers coming into your business, it is possible that they found you on the Instagram map.
