And though searching for a target audience on Instagram might seem easy, in reality, this is a tricky task. Luckily, with tools like Combin Growth, it becomes a little bit less daunting. This article reveals all actionable tactics of how you can find your target audience by super narrow and specific criteria.

đź’ˇSuggested read: Instagram User Search: How to Find People on Instagram Like a Pro

Find Your Target Audience with Hashtags

Since its inception, hashtags have been the primary way of content and user exploration on Instagram. If you add relevant hashtags to your post, you exponentially increase the chances of getting discovered by your target audience who start a hashtag search on Instagram.

Combin Growth's hashtag search works similarly but is more advanced: a user enters a hashtag or a combination of several tags into the search field and gets Instagram posts tagged under it. What's more, you have a number of other search settings and filters to add and can simultaneously target multiple hashtags.

  1. Launch Combin Growth and open the Search tab.
  2. Type in a tag of interest into the Hashtag field. Click the plus icon to add fields for more hashtags to target.

3. Select the time period at the Posted form to specify when the tagged posts should have been published.

4. Set the range of Likes and Comments count that the found posts should fit in. Thus, you can specifically target the hottest content, mildly popular publications or overlooked posts.

5. Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify Language, Gender and audience size (Followers and Followings count) of the accounts that published the tagged posts.

6. Click the Find button. Once the search results are loaded, you can select some or all and attract attention to your account by liking and commenting on the posts, and following the publication’s creators.

Find Your Target Audience Within Specific Locations

Targeting people geographically nearby is a surefire way to attract more foot traffic and drive sales for local businesses. Combin Growth allows for performing location-based targeting by one and multiple places at the same time, finding all posts tagged within the location on Instagram.

  1. Launch Combin Growth and open the Search tab.

2. Type in a place of interest in the Location field. Click the plus icon to add fields for more locations to target.

Other than typing the place name, you can use Combin Growth interactive map to define the search area radius and target specific establishments located within. Click the map icon next to the Location field and follow the instructions.

3. Select the time period at the Posted form to specify when the tagged posts should have been published.

4. Set the range of Likes and Comments count that the found posts should fit in. Thus, you can specifically target the hottest content, mildly popular publications or overlooked posts.

5. Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify Language, Gender and audience size (Followers and Followings count) of the accounts that published the tagged posts.

Combine Hashtags and Locations

Reach niche communities and increase local awareness by targeting with hashtag + location combinations. Combin also allows mixing multiple hashtags with multiple places, saving time from running the searches one by one.

In order to combine relevant hashtags with locations, open the Search tab and fill in both Hashtag and Location fields and select other search parameters as described above.

Find Your Target Audience that Engaged with Specific Users

Keeping an eye on competitors’ business is one of the keys to success on any platform, Instagram included. Besides getting ideas for further brand development and engaging content from your Instagram account’s competitors, you can also find and attract their audience. Or any other Instagram account’s audience, including yours. Combin Growth lets you target all — followings, followers, likers, and commenters of any public or accessible Instagram account.

  1. Launch Combin Growth and open the Search tab.
  2. Select the Users search type at the top of the application window.

3. Click the Search by field and specify whether you want to find Followings, Followers, Likers or Commenters.

4. Enter the account username into the User field.

5. Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify the preferable Language, Gender and Followers/Followings count of the accounts that engaged with the Instagram user you selected.

Find Your Target Audience that Engaged with Specific Posts

Instagram accounts that already engage with your content or publications of your competitors are likely to become the foundation of your brand’s loyal audience. They are already interested and active; all you need to do is single these accounts out and reach out to them. Here’s how to find them:

  1. Open the Search tab.

2. Select the Users search type at the top of the application window.

3. Click the Search by field and pick either Likers or Commenters from the menu.

4. Paste the link to the Instagram post into the of Post field.

Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify the preferable Language, Gender and Followers/Followings count of the accounts that engaged with the post.

We demonstrate how to sort and filter search results in Combin on illustrative examples.

Below the default search settings, there are Fast search and Advanced Filters and Analysis features.

  • Enable the Fast search mode to load search results quicker but without information about accounts (e.g. following and followers count, gender, etc.)
  • Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis feature to activate machine learning user analysis and set the preferable language, gender, last activity, and following/followers range filters.

5. Click Find after setting search parameters.

Filter Your Findings

Before you start to interact with your competitor’s audience, sort and filter search results to hide inapt profiles and prioritise engagement with the most or least followed accounts.

If Advanced Filters and Analysis is enabled for a search, its results can be filtered with a wider variety of filters.

To attract the attention of your competitor’s audience, follow them, like their last posts, leave comments and/or mass view their stories. Click Select All or pick profiles from the search results manually by clicking on them. At the bottom of the page, there are interaction buttons for following, liking, commenting, and mass story viewing. Click on them after selecting the accounts you’d like to engage with.

Combin then will automatically schedule an action task and safely process it in accordance with your individual hourly and daily activity limits.

Searching for a relevant target audience is no longer daunting or complicated due to Combin Growth. But don't just take our word for it — try it yourself 👇