Instagram is ramping up efforts to enhance its search functionality as social platforms compete with traditional search engines for user queries, according to recent statements from the company’s head.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, recently admitted that the platform’s content search capabilities need improvement during an appearance on the “Build Your Tribe” podcast.

“We’re starting to invest more in search on Instagram because there’s so much amazing content,” Mosseri 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.”

Mosseri noted that the team working on Instagram search has been small but that Meta has recently “strengthened” that team with the goal of rolling out improvements in the coming months and years.

Social Platforms Overtaking Traditional Search Engines

The push comes as research shows younger users increasingly turning to social platforms rather than traditional search engines. According to creator management platform GRIN, Instagram (30.4%) and TikTok (23.2%) now lead product discovery for Gen Z consumers aged 18-27, with Google falling to third place.

This shift in search behavior represents a change from older generations – 55.9% of Boomers and 41.1% of Gen X still rely on Google as their primary product discovery channel.

A Bernstein Research study found that 45% of Gen Z are more likely to use social media for searches.

Competition Intensifies Between Platforms

As the competition for search traffic heightens, TikTok maintains its position as the platform with the highest engagement rates. According to Dash Hudson’s June 2024 benchmark report, TikTok achieved a 4.5% cross-channel engagement rate compared to Instagram’s 4.0%.

The report also indicated that Instagram Reels has been gaining ground, closing the reach gap with TikTok to just 4%.

Future Search Improvements

Mosseri outlined several areas where Instagram plans to improve its search capabilities:

1. Making content more discoverable beyond the initial 24-48 hour period after posting
2. Enhancing comment-based search suggestions
3. Surfacing contextual information from comments

“Sometimes, where the real interesting context is not in the video that someone uploaded, but in the context around it — which is almost always in the comments. And so what we’re trying to do is surface that more easily, and then you can go and find out more,” Mosseri explained.

He indicated that a version of Instagram’s app that better leverages comments to enhance search suggestions will be released “soon.”