Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List

Instagram Scraper — Shared Network, Reach and Business Category

Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List maps the shared network behind a set of Instagram accounts — it pulls each seed's Following list, scores every followed account by how many of your seeds also follow it, and surfaces the influencers, partners, agencies, and tools a niche is collectively plugged into. Optionally enrich the top shared accounts with follower reach and business category. It's built for competitive intelligence teams, agencies mapping a market's ecosystem, and researchers studying which accounts a category collectively relies on.

What is Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List?

Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List is an Apify Actor that pulls the Following list for a set of seed Instagram profiles and scores every followed account by how many of those seeds follow it in common. A valid Instagram sessionid cookie is required — the Following list is login-walled, so the run returns nothing without one. Key capabilities:

• Pull the Following list for two or more seed profiles in a single run
• Score every followed account by seedFollowedByCount — how many of your seeds follow it
• Surface which specific seeds follow each shared account via followedBySeeds
• Optionally enrich the most-shared accounts with follower count, business category, verified status, and a follower/following ratio
• Exclude known accounts (your own brand, obvious giants) so results highlight new discoveries
• Automatic proxy escalation (direct → datacenter → residential) when Instagram gets restrictive

What data can I extract with Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List?

Field	Example Value	Use Case
username / full_name	"agency_creative_co" / "Creative Co Agency"	Identify the shared/followed account
seedFollowedByCount	3	The core score — how many of your seed profiles follow this account
followedBySeeds	["nike", "adidas", "puma"]	See exactly which seeds follow this account
sourceProfile	"nike"	The seed this specific row was collected from before scoring
followersCount / followsCount / postsCount	84200 / 310 / 1200	Reach signals (enrichment only)
followerFollowingRatio	271.6	A quick influence proxy (enrichment only)
isBusinessAccount / businessCategoryName	true / "Advertising/Marketing"	Segment shared accounts by business type
metricsEnriched	true	Confirm whether this row actually received enrichment
is_verified / is_private	true / false	Filter to verified or public-only accounts
profileUrl	"https://www.instagram.com/agency_creative_co/"	Direct link to the account
scrapedAt	"2026-07-26T14:02:11+00:00"	Record when the row was collected

Shared-network scoring

seedFollowedByCount and followedBySeeds come from a real, computed grouping across every seed's own Following list — the Actor collects each seed's followed accounts, groups by username across all seeds, and counts how many distinct seeds follow each account. Rows are sorted by seedFollowedByCount descending, so the most collectively-followed accounts surface first. This is not a similarity guess; it's a direct tally of real Following-list membership, and followedBySeeds lets you verify exactly which seeds contributed to any given account's score.

Reach enrichment for shared accounts

When includeProfileMetrics is on, the most-shared accounts (spent first, per maxEnrichedAccounts) get one extra profile fetch to pull followersCount, followsCount, postsCount, isBusinessAccount, businessCategoryName, and a computed followerFollowingRatio. Enrichment is capped and spent on the highest-scored accounts first, since those are the ones worth understanding in depth.

Why not build this yourself?

Instagram's Graph API only exposes a Business/Creator account's own following list to that account's own access token — there's no endpoint for pulling an arbitrary profile's Following list, and Instagram now requires a logged-in session even to read that data for third-party access. Building an equivalent tool yourself means maintaining a session-cookie-based authentication flow, handling Instagram's mobile-web following-list pagination, and writing the cross-seed grouping and scoring logic to turn multiple raw following lists into a ranked shared-network table. All of that is already implemented in this Actor's source.

How to use data extracted from Instagram?

Competitive intelligence and market mapping

Feed several competitors' profiles as seedProfiles to see which agencies, tool vendors, or influencers they're all collectively plugged into via seedFollowedByCount — a high score across multiple competitors is a strong signal of an important player in that market's ecosystem worth investigating further.

Agencies mapping a client's category

Run a client's key competitors as seeds and use excludeUsernames to drop already-known giants, letting seedFollowedByCount surface newer or less obvious shared connections the client might not already be tracking.

Market and ecosystem research

Enable includeProfileMetrics and compare followerFollowingRatio/businessCategoryName across the top shared accounts to understand whether a niche's shared network skews toward established influencers or smaller service providers.

AI agents and automated pipelines

An agent can call this Actor to pre-map a competitive landscape before triggering deeper research — filtering the returned dataset on seedFollowedByCount to focus only on accounts multiple relevant seeds have in common.

🔼 Input sample

Parameter	Required	Type	Description	Example Value
seedProfiles	No	array	Seed profile URLs or @handles; add 2+ for meaningful overlap scoring	["https://www.instagram.com/nike/", "https://www.instagram.com/adidas/"]
maxFollowingPerProfile	No	integer (min 0)	Cap on following accounts collected per seed; 0 = no cap	200 (default)
includeProfileMetrics	No	boolean	Enrich the most-shared accounts with reach metrics	false (default)
maxEnrichedAccounts	No	integer (min 0)	Cap on accounts enriched, spent on the most-shared first	50 (default)
excludeUsernames	No	array	Usernames/handles/URLs to exclude, matched by username	["@nike"]
sessionId	No (functionally required)	string (secret)	Instagram sessionid cookie; the login-walled Following list returns nothing without it	"(your session cookie)"
proxyConfiguration	No	object	Proxy settings; auto-escalates on repeated blocks	{"useApifyProxy": true}

{
  "seedProfiles": ["https://www.instagram.com/nike/", "https://www.instagram.com/adidas/", "https://www.instagram.com/puma/"],
  "maxFollowingPerProfile": 300,
  "includeProfileMetrics": true,
  "maxEnrichedAccounts": 30
}

Common pitfall: the schema marks sessionId as optional, but Instagram's Following list is login-walled — without a valid sessionid cookie, the run will return zero results rather than a partial list.

🔽 Output sample

Output is typed, normalized JSON — one row per shared/followed account, ranked by seedFollowedByCount descending (exportable as JSON, CSV, or Excel).

{
  "username": "agency_creative_co",
  "full_name": "Creative Co Agency",
  "seedFollowedByCount": 3,
  "followedBySeeds": ["nike", "adidas", "puma"],
  "sourceProfile": "nike",
  "followersCount": 84200,
  "followsCount": 310,
  "postsCount": 1200,
  "followerFollowingRatio": 271.6,
  "isBusinessAccount": true,
  "businessCategoryName": "Advertising/Marketing",
  "metricsEnriched": true,
  "is_verified": true,
  "is_private": false,
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/agency_creative_co/",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-26T14:02:11+00:00",
  "type": "related_profile",
  "pk": "5551234567",
  "pk_id": "5551234567",
  "id": "5551234567",
  "fbid_v2": "",
  "third_party_downloads_enabled": 0,
  "strong_id__": "5551234567",
  "profile_pic_id": "",
  "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/...",
  "has_anonymous_profile_picture": false,
  "account_badges": [],
  "latest_reel_media": 0,
  "is_favorite": false,
  "followed_by": null
}

All 30 fields shown above are the Actor's real dataset columns — this is the full output shape, not a subset.

How do you filter and target specific profiles?

seedProfiles is the core scope control — add 2 or more competitor or category profiles so the shared-network scoring has something meaningful to compare. excludeUsernames is the closest thing to a quality filter here, letting you drop accounts you already know (your own brand, obvious industry giants) so the output highlights genuinely new discoveries instead of accounts everyone already follows. Volume and depth are controlled by maxFollowingPerProfile (how deep into each seed's Following list to go) and, when enrichment is on, maxEnrichedAccounts (how many of the top-scored accounts get reach data) — both matter because deeper collection and enrichment both add request volume per seed.

{ "seedProfiles": ["nike", "adidas"], "maxFollowingPerProfile": 500, "includeProfileMetrics": true, "maxEnrichedAccounts": 25 }

{ "seedProfiles": ["nike", "adidas", "puma", "underarmour"], "excludeUsernames": ["@nike", "@adidas"], "maxFollowingPerProfile": 300 }

{ "seedProfiles": ["https://www.instagram.com/nike/", "https://www.instagram.com/adidas/"], "maxFollowingPerProfile": 0 }

▶️ Want to try other Instagram scrapers?

Scraper Name	What it extracts
Instagram Followers Scraper & Related Profile Expansion	Follower collection plus suggestion-based related-profile audience scoring
Instagram Related Person Scraper With Profile Enrichment	Related/lookalike networks for a single given account
Instagram Followers: With Bot Profile checker	Follower/following lists with quality/authenticity scoring
Instagram Followers Count Scraper	A lightweight follower-count-only lookup
Instagram Profile Scraper & Account Privacy Checker	Full profile details plus privacy-status checking
LinkedIn Company Employees Scraper With Growth Tracker	Comparable network/composition data for LinkedIn companies

How to extract Instagram data programmatically

Every run is a standard Apify Actor call — one API request with your token, JSON input, JSON results back.

Python example

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>")

run_input = {
    "seedProfiles": ["https://www.instagram.com/nike/", "https://www.instagram.com/adidas/"],
    "maxFollowingPerProfile": 300,
    "includeProfileMetrics": True,
}

run = client.actor("<YOUR_USERNAME>/instagram-following-scraper-related-profiles-list").call(run_input=run_input)

for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["username"], row["seedFollowedByCount"], row["followedBySeeds"])

Export to spreadsheets or CRM

Export the dataset directly as CSV or Excel, then map username/profileUrl to your CRM's contact fields and seedFollowedByCount/businessCategoryName to a prioritization column for competitive-mapping review.

Is it legal to scrape Instagram following lists?

Usernames, full names, and follower/following counts for individual creators are personal data, so GDPR and CCPA obligations apply to storing and using this data. Public Instagram following lists are visible to any logged-in visitor viewing the profile, but downstream storage for competitive-research purposes should follow applicable data-protection rules. Consult legal counsel for commercial applications involving bulk storage of personal data.

❓ FAQ

How is seedFollowedByCount actually computed?

It's a real tally, not an estimate: the Actor collects each seed's own Following list, groups the results by username across all seeds, and counts how many distinct seeds follow each account. followedBySeeds lists exactly which seeds contributed, so the score is fully verifiable.

Do I need to be logged into Instagram to use this?

Yes — the Following list is login-walled, and a valid Instagram sessionid cookie is required for the run to return any results at all, unlike some other Instagram data surfaces that work logged-out.

How many accounts can I get per run?

maxFollowingPerProfile (default 200, 0 = no cap) controls depth per seed; maxEnrichedAccounts (default 50) separately caps how many of the top-scored accounts get reach enrichment.

Does enrichment cost extra requests?

Yes — each enriched account is one additional profile fetch beyond the base Following-list collection, and enrichment is always spent on the most-shared accounts first (per maxEnrichedAccounts), not spread evenly.

Does Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List work with Claude, ChatGPT, and AI agent frameworks?

It has no dedicated MCP server registration in this Actor's current setup, but it is callable as a standard Apify API endpoint by any agent framework that can make an authenticated HTTP request and parse JSON.

How does this compare to other Instagram network-mapping scrapers?

No independently verifiable competitor listing could be confirmed at the time of writing, so no specific comparison is made here. This Actor's distinguishing feature is scoring accounts by real cross-seed Following-list membership rather than Instagram's own suggested-profile algorithm.

Can I exclude accounts I already know about?

Yes — excludeUsernames accepts handles, plain usernames, or profile URLs, matched by username, so already-known accounts (your own brand, obvious giants) don't clutter the shared-network results.

What happens with only one seed profile?

The Actor will still run, but seedFollowedByCount becomes meaningless with only one seed (every followed account would trivially score 1) — add at least two seeds for the overlap scoring to surface anything useful.

Conclusion

Instagram Following Scraper: Related Profiles List turns multiple competitors' Following lists into a single ranked map of the shared network behind them — real, computed overlap counts, not a guessed similarity score, optionally enriched with reach and business-category data. It's built for competitive intelligence teams, agencies, and researchers who need to see exactly which accounts a market collectively relies on. Start a run with two or more seed profiles and a valid session cookie to map the shared network behind them.