🔎 Instagram User Search

Who ranks for a keyword on Instagram — and how big those accounts are.

✨ What you get

One dataset row per account hit:

Field	What it is
searchPosition	Instagram's own rank for this keyword — 0 is the top result
keyword	which keyword produced the hit
username / userId / fullName	the account
isVerified / isPrivate / profilePicUrl / profileUrl	qualification and links
followers / following / posts / biography / externalUrl	populated when enrichment ran, otherwise null
enriched / postsCountReliable	whether counts were looked up, and whether the post count can be trusted

The run summary gives, per keyword: result count, how many were enriched, verified/private counts, the median follower count of enriched rows, and the top 5 hits in Instagram's order.

💼 Use cases

• Finding who owns a keyword — searchPosition is Instagram's own rank, 0 being the top result, and the Actor never re-sorts it by size. Reading position 0, 1, 2 tells you which account a term belongs to.
• Tracking a competitor's movement on your terms — run the same keywords weekly and diff searchPosition. An account that moves from 7 to 3 over a month is winning ground you thought was yours.
• Sizing the accounts you found — enrichTop (default 20, max 30) resolves follower counts on the top hits per keyword, so a keyword ranking is a list of mega and micro accounts mixed together until you check the numbers.
• Cross-checking overlap across terms — the same account found for several keywords appears once per keyword, each with its own position. An account ranking for three of your five terms is the one worth briefing.

✅ Who this is for

• SEO and social SEO managers— watching where accounts rank for a set of niche terms and whether that is moving.
• Content strategists— scoping a keyword before commissioning content, who need to know whether the accounts already ranking are brands or creators.
• Agencies running competitor keyword sweeps— across up to 20 terms who need an ordered account list rather than a screenshot of search results.
• Analysts building a prospect list by search term— who will chain the top hits into the profile or posts Actor for the deeper read.

❌ Who this is NOT for

• Ranking posts or Reels — this returns accounts, one row per hit. For what is ranking inside a term, use the Instagram Reels Search Actor; for what is under a tag, the Instagram Hashtag Posts Actor.
• A historical rank tracker — searchPosition is a snapshot of this run, not a stored history. Trend data only exists once you schedule the Actor and diff the column yourself.
• Reading followers: null as zero — only the first enrichTop hits per keyword are looked up; the rest keep null rather than a misleading zero, and enriched marks which rows have real numbers. enrichTop: 0 gives you handles with no sizes at all.
• Trusting posts: 0 — Instagram sometimes reports 0 for accounts that clearly have posts. postsCountReliable flags those rows; ignore the number when it is false.
• A full account directory or another platform — typically around 50 accounts per keyword is the full list Instagram's account search returns, and there is no pagination beyond it. TikTok, YouTube, Google Business or GMB listings are different products with different data.

🚀 Quick start

1. Open the Actor and press Start (defaults to the keyword yoga).
2. Add your niche keywords — one per line, up to 20.
3. Sort by searchPosition to see who owns the keyword; use enrichTop to size them up.

📥 Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	What it does
keywords	list	yoga	Keywords to search accounts for, one per line, up to 20 per run.
enrichTop	number	20	How many hits per keyword get a follower-count lookup (0–30). Set 0 for the fastest run.

📤 Output

• Dataset — one row per account hit (or a notice when nothing was collected)
• SUMMARY — per-keyword top hits and medians, request counts and warnings

⚙️ How it works

1. Each keyword is sent to Instagram's account search; every hit keeps its position — that ordering is the data, so it is never re-sorted by size.
2. The first enrichTop hits per keyword get a profile lookup, which adds followers/posts/bio.
3. The same account found for several keywords appears once per keyword, each with its own position — that is what makes competitor tracking possible.

💰 Billing

Pay per result — you are charged for the account rows this Actor actually returns, not for the run. Cost has two parts and both are visible in the summary: one search per keyword, plus one enrichment lookup per enriched hit. Lower enrichTop to spend less. Free tier: 5 runs/day.

❓ FAQ

What does searchPosition mean? The order Instagram itself returned for that keyword in this run. Position 0 is the first result. It is a snapshot, not a historical rank — run it weekly to see movement.

Why are followers null on many rows? Only the first enrichTop hits per keyword are looked up. The rest keep null rather than a misleading zero, and enriched tells you which rows have real numbers.

Can I track how my ranking changes over time? Yes: run the same keywords on a schedule and diff the searchPosition column over time. Nothing extra is needed — the Actor never re-sorts that column.

Are the post counts reliable? Check postsCountReliable. Instagram sometimes reports 0 posts for accounts that have them, and the flag marks those rows.

How many results come back per keyword? Typically around 50 accounts per keyword, which is the full list Instagram's search returns for accounts.

📚 Resources

• Apify free tier: 5 runs/day, then upgrade