Instagram Public Data report building guide

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With the Instagram Public Data data source, you can benchmark your competitors and see how your Instagram page grows over time. Analyze your marketing performance by combining public and paid data from Instagram with other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

Note

Stories, Reels, and IGTV data isn't available for Instagram Public Data.

Before you begin

Before you build reports, you need to connect the data source to Supermetrics.

Query types

With this data source, you need to select a query type to get the right type of data:

Profile info

  • Returns the current number of followers, follows, and posts for the account.

  • Returns basic account info: name, username, Instagram ID, bio, profile pic URL, website link.

To use this query type, add the Instagram profile names to the query setup. If you're querying multiple profile names, separate the names by commas.

Recommended uses

In Google Sheets, you can keep track of an account's follower count, or its posting frequency, using the Supermetrics "Combine new results with old" feature.

Limitations

  • Private, restricted, or age-limited data can't be fetched. "Error: Invalid profile name" can mean that the account name is invalid or that the account is restricted, age-limited, or private.

  • Historical data of account followers or post amounts can't be fetched. However, you can use the "Append results" and scheduled refresh features to gather data over time.

Profile posts

  • Returns posts of pages that are publicly available.

  • Post types include image, video, and carousel.

  • Can fetch data from the past and from a selected time period. Can also be used to get data on posts that are otherwise geo-restricted.

  • Shows basic post metrics (likes, comments), post URL, image URL (first image for carousel), post type, caption, and more, together with profile information.

To use this query type, add the Instagram profile names to the query setup. If you're querying multiple profile names, separate the names by commas.

Recommended uses

  • Follow new posts from multiple accounts that are difficult to manage.

  • Find and analyze top-performing posts from other accounts, like which content types, hashtags, and captions are performing well.

Post search

Allows you to search for posts tagged with a specific hashtag. The hashtag can be either in the post caption or as a comment. Hashtags can be added only by the original poster.

The "Post search" query type has two subtypes: Top and Recent.

  • "Top" returns a list of 100 top posts based on Instagram's algorithm rather than on likes or comments.

  • "Recent" returns a list of posts made within the last 24 hours with the specified hashtag.

Recommended uses

  • Follow discussions happening with specific hashtags.

  • Follow and store new posts with specific hashtags.

  • Find other hashtags used together in popular posts.

  • Find which profiles are popular and are discussing using specific hashtags.

Note that if you need to use multiple query types in your Looker Studio report, you'll need to create separate connectors for each query type you use.

Popular queries

These query configurations help you track key performance indicators and analyze trends. You can use these settings in any Supermetrics destination, such as Data Explorer, Dashboards, Google Sheets, Looker Studio, or data warehouse destinations.

Analyze comments and likes per post

See how many comments and likes each post received in the last 7 days, alongside post type and creation date — useful for identifying top-performing content and benchmarking against competitor accounts.

To fetch this data, use the following settings in your reporting or visualization tool:

Setting

Value

Query type

Profile posts

Profile names

Enter the Instagram profile names to query (separate multiple names with commas)

Date range

Last 7 days

Metrics

Comments, Likes

Dimensions

Username, Link to post, Post created, Post type

Suggested visualization

Table

Understanding the data

  • Comments: The total number of comments on the post, including replies.

  • Likes: The total number of likes on the post.

  • Username: The Instagram handle of the account that published the post.

  • Link to post: A direct URL to the post on Instagram.

  • Post created: The date and time the post was published.

  • Post type: The format of the post, such as image, video, or carousel.

Compare follower and post counts across profiles

Get an overview of one or more Instagram accounts — including their follower count, number of accounts they follow, and total posts published — alongside basic profile details for easy side-by-side comparison.

To fetch this data, use the following settings in your reporting or visualization tool:

Setting

Value

Query type

Profile info

Profile names

Enter the Instagram profile names to query (separate multiple names with commas)

Metrics

Profile post count, Profile followers, Profile follows

Dimensions

Username, Biography, Name, Website

Suggested visualization

Table

Understanding the data

  • Profile post count: The total number of posts published by the profile.

  • Profile followers: The number of unique accounts currently following the profile.

  • Profile follows: The total number of accounts the profile is following.

  • Username: The Instagram handle of the account.

  • Biography: The bio text from the profile's About section.

  • Name: The display name of the account.

  • Website: The website URL listed on the profile.

Discover top posts for a hashtag

See the most popular posts containing a specific hashtag — useful for understanding what content performs best within a topic and identifying accounts and posting patterns worth benchmarking.

To fetch this data, use the following settings in your reporting or visualization tool:

Setting

Value

Query type

Post search

Hashtags

Enter the hashtags to search for and select Top as the post search type

Metrics

Number of hashtags, Likes, Comments

Dimensions

Hashtags, Matching hashtags, Image, Link to post

Suggested visualization

Table

Understanding the data

  • Number of hashtags: The total number of hashtags found in the post caption.

  • Likes: The total number of likes on the post.

  • Comments: The total number of comments on the post, including replies.

  • Hashtags: All hashtags present in the post caption.

  • Matching hashtags: The hashtags from the post caption that match the hashtags you supplied for the search.

  • Image: The image associated with the post.

  • Link to post: A direct URL to the post on Instagram.

More resources

See the Supermetrics blog for posts about Instagram hashtag analysis and how to analyze your competitors on Instagram.

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