Instagram Content Ideas Generator

An Apify Actor that generates research-backed Instagram content ideas using AI. It scrapes popular Instagram posts related to your topic, analyzes engagement patterns and audience sentiment, optionally benchmarks competitors, and uses Google's Gemini AI to synthesize data-driven content strategies.

How it works

1. Strategic Search - Uses the Instagram Hashtag Scraper to discover trending posts, reels, and audio for your topic
2. Deep Pattern Analysis - Analyzes engagement metrics, caption styles, hashtag clusters, audience voice (from comments), and audio trends
3. Competitor Benchmarking (optional) - Scrapes competitor profiles and recent posts to identify content gaps and differentiation opportunities
4. AI Synthesis - A LangGraph ReAct agent with Gemini 2.0 Flash generates ideas grounded in real data, each citing specific patterns, engagement numbers, and audience insights
5. Structured Output - Returns ideas with inspiration URLs, hooks, formats, emotions, hashtags, and audience insights to the dataset

Important: Be specific with your topic

Generic or vague topics (e.g., "fashion", "food", "marketing") will produce inconsistent results and significantly longer run times. The AI agent searches Instagram, analyzes posts, and synthesizes ideas — broad topics return too much unfocused data, making the analysis unreliable and slow.

Good topics (specific niche + angle):

• "sustainable fashion for Gen Z"
• "home barista coffee tips"
• "AI for small business"
• "minimalist home organization"
• "CrossFit workout programming"

Bad topics (too broad):

• "fashion" — millions of posts, no clear niche
• "food" — too generic, slow search, unfocused ideas
• "business" — could mean anything, results will be scattered
• "fitness" — narrow it down to a specific style or audience

The more context you provide (brand description, audience, content goal), the better and more consistent the output.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
topic	string	Yes	-	Main content topic or niche — be specific (see above)
audience	string	No	"general audience"	Who the content is for — demographics, interests, pain points
numIdeas	integer	No	5	Number of ideas to generate (1-20). More ideas = longer run time
resultsLimit	integer	No	20	Max posts to scrape per search (1-100). Higher = more data but slower
keywordSearch	boolean	No	true	Broader keyword search vs strict hashtag matching. Recommended on
brandDescription	string	No	-	Your brand, what you do, and unique positioning. More detail = better ideas
competitors	array	No	-	Up to 3 competitor Instagram handles (without @) to benchmark against
contentGoal	enum	No	-	Shapes format mix and strategy: grow_followers, drive_sales, build_community, establish_authority, increase_engagement, brand_awareness
brandVoice	string	No	-	Tone of voice for hooks and descriptions (e.g., "witty and irreverent")
avoidTopics	string	No	-	Comma-separated topics to exclude from ideas

Example: Full input (brand-specific)

Best results come from providing as much context as possible:

{
    "topic": "AI for small business",
    "audience": "non-technical business owners, founders, and decision-makers who know they need AI but don't know where to start",
    "numIdeas": 5,
    "resultsLimit": 20,
    "keywordSearch": true,
    "brandDescription": "moulds.ai — an AI consultancy founded by a data scientist. We help non-tech businesses integrate AI into their operations. Our angle: we translate complex AI into simple, tangible business outcomes.",
    "competitors": ["jaspar.ai", "synthesia"],
    "contentGoal": "drive_sales",
    "brandVoice": "approachable expert — confident but not jargon-heavy, uses analogies and real examples, makes AI feel accessible not intimidating",
    "avoidTopics": "overly technical ML content, fear-mongering about AI replacing jobs, crypto"
}

Example: Minimal input (topic only)

Works for quick exploration, but ideas will be more generic:

{
    "topic": "home barista coffee tips",
    "numIdeas": 5
}

Output

The Actor produces a dataset of structured content ideas:

{
    "idea": "Create a carousel breaking down 3 real AI tools that saved small businesses 10+ hours/week",
    "inspirationUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/...",
    "format": "carousel",
    "hook": "Your competitor is already using AI. Here's what they know that you don't.",
    "targetEmotion": "curiosity",
    "suggestedHashtags": ["#AIforBusiness", "#SmallBusinessTips", "#Automation"],
    "audienceInsight": "Comments reveal business owners feel overwhelmed by AI options and want simple, proven solutions"
}

Each idea includes:

• idea - Detailed, actionable content description
• inspirationUrl - Real Instagram post URL from research (must contain /p/ or /reel/)
• format - One of: reel, carousel, post, story
• hook - Attention-grabbing opening line written in your brand voice
• targetEmotion - Primary emotion: aspiration, humor, curiosity, fear, inspiration, relatability, empowerment, nostalgia, excitement, or trust
• suggestedHashtags - At least 3 trending hashtags from research
• audienceInsight - Specific pain point or interest derived from real comments

Pricing

This Actor uses Pay Per Event pricing:

Event	Price	Description
Actor start	$0.00005 (default)	Automatic flat fee per run
Content idea generated	$0.02	Per idea pushed to dataset (automatic via push_data)
Competitor analysis	$0.03	Per competitor Instagram account analyzed

Example costs:

Run type	Ideas	Competitors	Total
Simple (topic only)	5	0	~$0.10
With brand context	10	0	~$0.20
Full with competitors	5	3	~$0.19
Maximum	20	3	~$0.49

Platform compute costs (CPU, memory, sub-actor calls) are billed separately through your Apify account.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
GOOGLE_API_KEY	Your Google AI API key for Gemini

Setup

1. Configure GOOGLE_API_KEY in the Actor's Environment variables
2. Pricing is configured automatically via pay_per_event.json

Local Development

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run locally with input file
apify run --input-file input.json

# Deploy to Apify
apify push moulds.ai/instagram-ideas-generator

Tech Stack

• LangGraph - ReAct agent framework
• Gemini 2.0 Flash - Google's AI model for analysis and synthesis
• Apify SDK - Actor development toolkit
• Instagram Hashtag Scraper - Hashtag/keyword discovery
• Instagram Scraper - Profile and post scraping
• Pydantic v2 - Structured output validation

Resources

• Apify Python SDK docs
• LangGraph documentation
• Google AI documentation
• Pay Per Event pricing docs