Instagram API is a powerful tool available to anyone, which lets you connect your website or app with Instagram’s services. Using one SDK, one API key you can easily extract and download media from Insta and Facebook without much effort!
Instagram is one of the most popular social media websites, and perhaps one of the best platforms for startup businesses to focus their marketing campaigns. This is because Facebook is used primarily for personal connections and photo sharing, and Twitter is for trending news and discussions. Instagram, on the other hand, is where people follow influencers and become part of social media communities.
In fact, statistics show higher engagement rates on Instagram campaigns, compared to Facebook. Think of it this way – people go to Facebook to see photos of their family, and might click an interesting sponsor post. People go to Instagram to find the latest trends and be marketed to.
Many online businesses have found valuable uses for the Instagram API in promoting their business, and in this article, we’re going to highlight a few ways you can also leverage the Instagram API to your benefit.
5 Ways to Use Instagram API for Your Business
#1. Pull images from hashtags and user IDs
A very basic function of the Instagram API that many apps and services rely on is the ability to display photos based on hashtags. This has many different uses, but one example would be publishing a gallery of photos uploaded by users with a #hashtag from a contest you’re running. It’s really quite simple, and you can enhance it with a bit of Python coding – just take a look at this Rapid API guide.
Another example is Casetify, a company that lets users create their own customized mobile phone cases by pulling photos directly from their Instagram account. Customers simply connect their personal Instagram account to the Casetify website, and can then choose what photos to customize the phone case with.
#2. Find trends around the world
You can pull data from geotags, which can help you find trending topics in specific locations. This is useful for targeting locations with your marketing campaign, discovering local influencers, or researching what’s popular in a geographic market you’d like to target.
#3. Measure your campaign and event performance
Since the API lets you pull content from hashtags and geotags, you can quickly summarize how users are responding to campaigns you’re running, or what users are saying about your products or services. If it’s an event you’re running, you can also pull tagged photos to get an idea of how many people participated.
#4. Create live feeds of user photos
This works best if you’re a venue-based business, but it’s not entirely useless for others as well. The idea is that you can ask event attendees or venue customers to tag their photos taken at the venue, and you can then use the Instagram API to display those photos on your page.
Musicians such as the Black Eyed Peas have used this for displaying photos in real-time taken by fans at concerts, or just live streaming their concerts on the platform.
#5. Find your perfect influencers
You can use the Instagram API to determine which users are most engaged with your brand, as well as determine their location and follower-base. Rather than risk shutdown by using Instagram bots, which violate the Instagram API’s ToS, you can use the API to help you build organic connections.
If you have engagement from people who are in the right location with their own following, consider asking them to promote your brand. This is one of the key steps of how to successfully sell on Instagram.
