Instagram rolls out updated Maps to enable business discovery

Instagram has announced the global rollout of a new Maps experience that allows users to discover popularly tagged locations around them.

The updated Maps experience would enable users to discover small businesses, restaurants, cafes, beauty salons, and other tagged businesses, on Instagram.

Popularly tagged locations would now be discoverable. The feature may also boost the discovery of local small businesses on Instagram by allowing people to filter the locations by specific categories such as restaurants, cafes, and beauty salons.

For businesses, this discovery holds the potential to translate into business impact and sales. The searchable maps help people see what’s happening nearby via tagged posts, stories, and guides shared by the users. People can also find relevant locations on the map when searching certain hashtags. The feature was launched in Japan a year ago and has been globally rolled out today.

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Find A Place

• Discover a new place by tapping location tags in Feed or Stories content
• Search the name of a city, neighbourhood, or place in Explore. Hashtag search is also available for local hashtags (e.g. #newdelhi)
• Previous stories you've posted that include a location sticker can also be viewed via map in the Stories Archive

Access Content

• Browse recent stories, top posts, and relevant guides of tagged locations to learn more.
• Filter by location categories to narrow the search

Explore

• Save locations to a collection to revisit in the future
• Share places via direct message to friends or groups

Contribute

• Use location tags or stickers in the content and it will appear on the map (if the profile is public)