Instagram's Explore Page (2026): Influencer Marketing Guide

The Explore page on Instagram is where content gets recommended, surfaced on tiles, and pushed to users based on what Instagram thinks they’ll like the most.

Here lies an audience that didn’t know your creator existed… but is primed to care when the right content lands in front of them.

And when it does, follows happen fast.

For talent managers, understanding how to land on Explore changes the game.

It means turning Instagram’s recommendation into a distribution channel for your content — one that puts your talent in front of new fans.

Yet most managers treat Explore like luck. 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

They post, hope, and wait.

So let’s change that — and make sure your talent earns a real shot at Explore. 🙌

About The Author: William Shoe

Founder @ IconDesk.co & Talent Village

William Shoe

Instagram

LinkedIn

Over the past decade, I’ve helped talent managers and agencies across the UK, Europe, and the US build successful talent brands and secure high-value partnerships.​​ Having worked at LVMH, and run my own talent agency (Talent Village), I know first-hand the daily challenges that talent managers face today – and what it takes to succeed.

Understanding Explore’s Recommendation System

Landing on the Explore page is about aligning your content with identifiable signals that showcase alignment with a particular niche and audience.

Explore is all about showing users content they will love.

This means, it’s driven by recommendation algorithms that are mainly optimising for:

• Predicted interest (will this user like this content?)

• Early engagement velocity

• Content similarity to what the user already engages with

• Creator credibility within a niche
  

Key Explore Triggers

• Saves

• Shares (especially DMs)

• Rewatches

• Profile taps

• Time spent on post
  

If a post performs above baseline with:

1. Your followers

2. A small test audience
   

Instagram pushes it wider, into the explore page.

Practical Explore-Focused Strategy (what actually works)

Consistent audience signals

When your creator posts the same type of content, in the same style, for the same audience consistently, Instagram figures out who to show them to much faster — and starts recommending them on Explore more often.

Keep consistent:

☑️ Same topics

☑️ Same viewer type

☑️ Same aesthetic

Hyper-clear content theme

Instagram needs clarity on what your content is about and who it’s for:

☑️ One niche per account

☑️ Repetition beats variety

Strong 1-second hooks

☑️ Visual or text hook

☑️ No slow intros

Save & Share triggers

This is where hard engagement matters most. Forget vanity metrics. Success on Explore should be measured by:

—> Saves

—> Shares

—> Rewatches

—> Profile taps

Content themes like tips, checklists, BTS, and opinion sharing work particularly well for to trigger these signals.

Intentional calls to action can also support and strengthen this:

• “Save this for later”

• “Share with someone who needs this”

• “Come back to this next time”

• “Send this to..”

Rather than “like this post”.

Bottom line:

If you want Explore reach, you need an Explore-specific content strategy.

If you’re not crystal clear on which particular niche you are serving, a good way to get started with designing and executing this strategy is through social listening and trend surfing.

Social Listening & Trend Surfing

Instagram needs to understand who your content is for before it can recommend it confidently.

Most creators fail here by being too broad.

This means, that you have to niche down. Pick who you are creating content for, learn about what they like, what trends are native to them, what songs they resonate with, and what creators are viral in their niche.

That’s the art of social listening. You need to understand the micro-culture around your niche, and tap into it to be a part of it.

It’s like a big wave. 🌊

Position yourself right, and you get to surf the wave of virality. 🏄

Ignore it, and you’re forced to create your own momentum 🛶

So - do your research 📚 (And yes - I mean scroll & watch content. But actively with intent.)

Pick and deeply understand a particular sub-culture or niche.

Now that you have done your research. And you’ve found your wave 🌊.

We must get specific and list what is unique to this culture:

👉 Repeated formats

👉 Common structures

👉 Reused audios

👉 Similar hooks and pacing 👉 Repeated Hashtags

Virality leaves patterns. Your job is to find them. This becomes your winning content formula.

Now - you’re ready to surf it 🏄 .

You need to break down viral posts in your niche and embed what’s consistent across them.

You’re now reverse-engineering what Instagram already trusts and distributes.

Once you’ve got a hang of it, you can begin to add your own twists and get more creative 🏄.

IconDesk - the first management software for talent agencies.

Amongst this AI buzz, have you been wondering how automation could apply to your talent agency?

With AI agents propping up everywhere which supposedly do everything and anything, CEOs, Directors and COOs are often confronted with a question - could I massively streamline our agency?

Are we falling behind?

Our industry has it’s own operational specificities which I believe make it very hard to gain meaningful efficiencies with generic solutions.

Whilst running Talent Village, I spent 5 years with other industry leaders (in talent management) to build a software designed specifically for our needs. It’s not an agent. It’s not just instant media kits, or 1 click campaign reports (although it does do that!).

It’s an operational hub that centralises all the core responsibilities of talent managers, and automates the mundane manual aspects out of the role.

I’d love to show it to you.

Let’s find a time for a quick 15 minute call.

👉 Book here.