Mobile design · Instagram

Category label on Instagram Profile

Turning the static category label on a profile into an entry point for discovering businesses. I was an iOS and web engineer focused on product and UX at Instagram. As project lead, I worked with a cross-functional team to launch the feature to 40M+ users.

Role: Project lead · iOS & Web EngineerI refined the edge cases and error cases with the team’s designer.
Company: Instagram (Meta)

Final design: tapping the category label opens a dedicated “Explore businesses” feed.

Why this project matters

Measurable impact: 8% CTR and +9.3% MoM follower growth for professional accounts.
Added a new surface to Instagram.

8%click-through rate (CTR) to category content

+9.3%MoM follower growth for professional accounts

40M+users in the experiment cohort

+2M BVIConsumer Business Value Index, Instagram’s internal score for how a feature performs in Ads, measured during the experiment window

Background

01 / 03

Problem and goal

Small and medium business accounts have a hard time gaining followers on IG, and we want to help them get more exposure.

Exploration

02 / 03

Which surfaces could we build on?

Our team can add features directly to Profile, Stories and Reels without coordinating ownership with other teams.

Why Profile

Profile has the highest traffic on Instagram.

IG Profile is already crowded

We have to find a spot we can still use within the limited space.

The category label is the best spot

It was static; tapping it did nothing.

Solution

03 / 03

Final design

Tapping the category label opens a dedicated “Explore businesses” discovery feed. Each recommended business comes with a grid of 3 posts, enough for a good peek at the account and few enough to judge it at a glance.

+9.3%MoM follower growth for professional accounts

8%click-through rate (CTR)

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