Build an Instagram creator research workflow
Start with a shortlist of known public profile URLs. FetchFox can supply profile and post observations; your research criteria and final decisions remain in your own application.
Define what a useful candidate looks like
Choose the topic, language, publishing format, and observation window before collecting data. Avoid treating follower count as a substitute for relevance. This API does not provide private audience demographics or guaranteed contact information.
Inspect comments on selected posts
For a qualitative review, select one public post and inspect an available comment batch. Keep the source, retrieval date and collection status with your notes. A partial sample does not establish overall audience sentiment.
Collect a small, comparable sample
Use the same limit and collection window for every candidate. Start with a single creator to inspect response fields before processing a list.
- Read /instagram/channel-stats for the profile identity, bio, and public counts.
- Read /instagram/channel-posts?limit=20 or /instagram/channel-reels?limit=20 depending on the format you study.
- For selected individual posts, use /instagram/stats and decide whether verified views are essential.
- Store identifiers, source URLs, retrieval times, and missing-value flags in your own database or spreadsheet.
Make the cost explicit
A profile lookup costs one credit. A successful list of up to 20 returned posts or reels costs at least one credit. Each additional single-post metrics read costs one credit. A profile plus a 20-item feed sample therefore starts at two credits, before follow-up reads.
Separate attempts from charged results. Failures consume no processing credits. There is no separate monthly request-attempt allowance.
Review before acting
Deduplicate repeated observations and leave unavailable view counts as null. Document your sampling limits beside any comparison. Read the original content before drawing conclusions; FetchFox does not provide an automatic creator quality score.