Instagram expands its Explore tab with Stories, IGTV, and Shopping

Social media platform pushing the discovery of Stories

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Instagram is increasingly placing more of its eggs in its Stories, Shopping, and IGTV baskets, with the photography and videography-centric social media platform now bringing these features to an even broader audience.

The Explore tab of Instagram – a section of the app designed to expose users to new, yet personalized content – is being revamped to include relevant Stories suggestions based on your current search habits and followed accounts. While first found on the likes of Snapchat, Instagram’s adoption of the ephemeral Stories feature – short videos or images that disappear within 24 hours, thus allowing for a slightly less curated experience –has done very well on social media platforms.

Explore will also include more detailed versions of its IGTV and Shop features, with a newly designed navigation bar at the top. The redesigned Explore tab will now sport filters that will give preference to those two formats first (video and e-commerce), and when they do appear in the tiles as you scroll through, they’ll occupy larger spaces than regular posts.

The new look and functionality of the Explore tab will make its way to the Instagram mobile app “in the coming weeks”, so be sure to check for updates soon.

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