Basic Instagram API please

ccgcarrascosa · December 20, 2017, 12:00pm

I am trying to get the number of followers of an authenticated instagram user, the problem is that the instagram plugin is lacking this information, which I really believe I basic.

So now I think that my only solution is to use the API connector, I believe there is enough info to authenticate an user, but I couldn’t get enough info about getting the followers number.I am not a coder so I would appreciate a explanation of the workflow, I really don’t know how to handle the answer of the API

thank’s in advance.

eddy · December 20, 2017, 12:07pm

Hey, what I do to get the amount of followers is via Blockspring, you can easily add the Instagram api and connect what you need like searching for a user’s following

ccgcarrascosa · December 20, 2017, 12:16pm

thank’s I am going to try right away

jssrecording · January 4, 2018, 8:45pm

Is there anyway to do this without Blockspring? Just to confirm Blockspring does work if you wanna pay $15 per month, I’ve tried it! I’m just looking for a tutorial on maybe using the api connector to get the follow count of any username entered. I can get my follow count using an access_token generated, but sadly only mine lol!

Cheers
Jason

jssrecording · January 6, 2018, 3:46pm

Okay I found a really simple way to get basic information without API access.

You can create a get request with the api connector and use this url string to get the Json data.
https://www.instagram.com//?__a=1

ccgcarrascosa · January 12, 2018, 6:46pm

that is really helpful, thanks for sharing,
So @gaurav is it possible to make the plugin live with this method?

jssrecording · January 16, 2018, 4:44am

No problem

footballresearchprue · January 16, 2018, 7:44pm

Hi, I really like your approach to this issue.
Is it possible to include dynamic data instead of manually typing instagram URL? So, I basically ask my users to provide a link to their instagram pages and want to extract their followers count automatically with this API call. Obviously, manually typing all of the URLs is not scalable.
Appreciate the feedback.

Best regards

gaurav · January 16, 2018, 8:04pm

Is that on the right side of instagram’s legal terms & conditions to fetch the data that way @jssrecording @ccgcarrascosa ? If yes, then we could take a look at changing the plugin that way.

jssrecording · January 16, 2018, 8:26pm

Not sure about the legality! If so it would be a simple solution to use in a plugin. The data is public JSON via URL. No guarantees on how long this will work.

jssrecording · January 16, 2018, 8:29pm

This might work! Make the url completely dynamic.

jssrecording · January 16, 2018, 8:40pm

Example: https://instagramnoapi.bubbleapps.io/version-test/instagram?debug_mode=true

footballresearchprue · January 17, 2018, 3:59pm

Hi, I tried using the call described in your screenshot. But I’m getting the following response:

You have set the data type of this call to JSON/XML, but what is returned is not an object, but a text. Please check your settings.

Tried switching from JSON to XML, but that didn’t work either… The link to the example you provided doesn’t seem to work.

jssrecording · January 17, 2018, 6:08pm

Hmm… Paste this in the Get field. [url]/?__a=1

Next it should automatically create a URL parameters header with a key. uncheck the private checkbox. Add a default instagram full path url with username in the Value field.
Example: https://www.instagram.com/chucknorris/

Here is my working example app for you to edit

If this doesn’t work can you send me a screenshot or temp access?

Cheers
Jason

footballresearchprue · January 17, 2018, 6:36pm

So I pasted the values you specified for the API call. That worked. But once I try making the call the follower count value doesn’t get extracted. The same thing happens with your example - I paste the account link and nothing happens, is this just me?

jssrecording · January 17, 2018, 6:40pm

It’s working on my end. Not sure whats going on.

footballresearchprue · January 17, 2018, 7:08pm

Alright, I finally figured it out. So apparently I put a slash at the end of the link and that screwed up the URL path, once I got rid of it - everything started working… This is huge fro my app, thanks a great deal!

Do you know if it’s also possible to do the same with other social networks (i.e. Facebook, Youtube, VK.com)?

jssrecording · January 19, 2018, 12:33am

To get the like count of any page on facebook, you can use this method below.
Create a new Call with this in the Get url:
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.2/[fan_page]?fields=fan_count&access_token=123456yourtokenforyourapp

Note: you need an access token for your app.

This url will create a key with fan_page. Uncheck private.

The object you want to get the likes count is called ‘fan_count’.

Here is a picture of my setup.

Cheers
Jason Smith

lff · July 27, 2018, 3:00pm

Hi!

The “?__a=1” trick seems to not working anymore, right? New instagram data policy?
Do you have an alternative solution to get n° of followers and other basic info?

Best!

klaas.vanhoeck1 · September 2, 2020, 10:01am

It worked for me a few months for me but now it is broken. I got the same problem as above:

You have set the data type of this call to JSON/XML, but what is returned is not an object, but a text. Please check your settings.

Has someone a way around this without using the graph API which is super unclear to me.

thanks!