Instagram has rolled out what might be one of its simplest, and yet most important changes to its app since it was first unveiled in 2010.
You can now follow hashtags as well as human beings.
Now, rather than finding someone that takes pictures of a subject you’re interested in you can simply pick the appropriate hashtag (#onthetable, #architecture or #floralnails) and then see all the images related to that hashtag in your main feed.
So how does it work? Well it’s just like finding and following a human being.
You simply search for the hashtag you’re interested in and then you’ll see a list of the most relevant results.
When you find one you like you simply tap on it to bring up its own profile page which you can then follow.
What you’re seeing is not every single photo taken in real-time with that hashtag, instead you’ll be seeing the top performing posts and then some curated Instagram Stories that are related to that hashtag.
You’ll also be able to see the hashtags that your friends follow by going to their profile page which yes, means that anyone who follows you can also see the hashtags you follow.
If you have a private profile your hashtags will only be visible to the people that you’ve let follow you.
Instagram is rolling the feature out to its 800+ million followers right now so don’t panic if it hasn’t appeared in your app just yet.