Instagram Mention Scraper - Brand Monitor

Monitor Instagram for posts that mention or tag specific accounts. This actor uses Google search to discover Instagram posts referencing a target username, making it a powerful tool for brand monitoring, competitor analysis, and social listening.

What does Instagram Mention Scraper do?

Instagram Mention Scraper helps you track when other Instagram users mention or tag a specific account in their posts. Instead of manually searching Instagram for mentions, this actor automates the process by leveraging Google's index of public Instagram content. It searches for posts containing specific usernames and extracts relevant data including post URLs, shortcodes, author usernames, captions, and timestamps.

The scraper constructs targeted Google search queries using the format site:instagram.com "@username" to find Instagram posts that contain mentions of the target account. It then parses the Google search results to extract Instagram post URLs and metadata. Optionally, it can visit each discovered post to gather additional details like full captions and exact timestamps.

Key Features

• Multi-Account Monitoring: Track mentions for multiple Instagram accounts in a single run. Provide a list of usernames and the actor will search for mentions of each one.
• Google-Powered Discovery: Leverages Google's extensive index of Instagram content to find mentions that might be difficult to discover through Instagram's own search.
• Time Period Filtering: Narrow results to specific time windows including the last day, week, month, or year for targeted monitoring.
• Post Detail Enrichment: Optionally fetch each discovered Instagram post page to extract additional data like full captions, author details, and precise timestamps.
• Rate Limit Handling: Built-in retry logic and randomized delays to handle Google and Instagram rate limiting gracefully.
• Shortcode Extraction: Automatically extracts Instagram post shortcodes from URLs for easy cross-referencing with other tools.

Input Configuration

• usernames (required): Array of Instagram usernames to monitor for mentions. Enter without the @ symbol.
• maxResultsPerUsername (optional, default: 50): Maximum number of search results to collect per username. Higher values require more Google search pages.
• fetchPostDetails (optional, default: false): When enabled, the actor visits each discovered Instagram post to gather additional details. This increases accuracy but requires more requests and time.
• searchPeriod (optional, default: "any"): Filter results by time period. Options are "any", "day", "week", "month", or "year".
• proxyConfiguration (optional): Proxy settings for making requests. Residential proxies are strongly recommended to avoid Google CAPTCHAs and Instagram blocking.

Output Data

Each record in the output dataset represents a single Instagram post that mentions the target account. The output fields include:

Field	Description
targetUsername	The username being monitored for mentions
postUrl	Full URL of the Instagram post
postShortcode	Instagram shortcode identifier for the post
authorUsername	Username of the post author (when available)
caption	Post caption or Google search snippet
timestamp	Date or timestamp of the post
source	How this mention was discovered
scrapedAt	When this data was collected

Usage Tips

For best results, use residential proxies to avoid Google CAPTCHAs and Instagram rate limiting. Start with smaller result counts per username and increase gradually. The search period filter is useful for ongoing monitoring tasks where you only need recent mentions. When using the post detail enrichment feature, expect longer run times due to the additional requests required for each discovered post. Google's index may not include every Instagram post, so this tool works best for discovering a broad sample of mentions rather than capturing every single one.

Common Use Cases

This actor is particularly valuable for brand monitoring, tracking influencer campaigns, monitoring competitor mentions, finding user-generated content featuring your brand, and conducting social media audits. It can be scheduled to run periodically for ongoing mention tracking.