Number of followers on Instagram

Ask the Community
#1

Hi !

Is it possible to know the number of followers on an Instagram page automatically (based on the URL web site or Instragram page URL) in DashDash?

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

1 Like
#2

Hi @Copilot,

Yes, there is! :nail_care:

One of our power-users, @cwinhall, has actually found an API that retrieves the following count and other Instagram data as a JSON object, based on an Instagram username:

=GET("https://www.instagram.com/"&A2&"/?__a=1")

A2 includes an Insta handle.
image

Let me know if this solves it for you :raised_hands:

2 Likes
#3

Huge thank you !

But I still have a problem.

With Built With integration it return me a list of the social media URL available for a Web site URL

  1. http://facebook.com/accountname
  2. http://instagram.com/accountname

etc…

The order of them is random so I want to do a big If(Find) formula to check if a cell contain “instagram” get the accountname (with a right function).

But I can’t find how to do, i try that way but is not working because the Find return a #VALUE! if is not find

=IF(FIND(“instagram”,A2)<>"",A2,IF(FIND(“instagram”,B2)<>"",B2,
etc…

#4

Hi again @Copilot,

There’s actually a formula that allows you to parse a data object out of a JSON that contains a certain string, for example “instagram”.

Here’s how you do it:

First, you get the data via BuiltWith (in my example: B2). Then, you could create a column that specifies which social profile you’re looking for—Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

In the next column, you then parse out the object, referring to the profile type specified in C2.

D2=PARSE(B2,"$..Social[?(@ =~ /.*"&C2&".*/i)]")

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Once you have that, you can parse out the URL directly in the next column and wrap an IFERROR() function around it that displays a “Not found” help text in case no IG profile has been found:

=IFERROR(PARSE(D2,"[0]"),"not found")

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Finally, you extract only the Insta handle from the URL:

F2=RIGHT(E2,LEN(E2)-SEARCH("com/",E2)-3)

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Then, you can directly refer to F2 when making the request to the IG API to get the follower count.

Hope this helps :blush:

1 Like
#5

Hi @nadjabenes,

Thanks a lot! It’s working perfectly! :scream:

I have just one more little question.

With this formula :
=PARSE(B2,"$…Social[?(@ =~ /."&C2&"./i)]")

I only will be able to find a label in the Social block of the api.
If I want for exemple in BuiltWith know if the web site have a specific tech.

exemple :

  • C2 = MailJet
  • D2 = MailJet or “Not Found”

MailJet is in Technologies -> “an index number” -> Name

Is it possible?

I tried with that, but I didn’t get any result (But B2 have MailJet in Technologies) :
=PARSE(B2,"$…Technologies[?(@ =~ /."&$C$2&"./i)]")

#6

Yes, that’s possible, too! We’ll have to add the Name object here as well, since that’s the next higher object in the API response.

Your PARSE function should look like this:

=PARSE(B2,"$..Technologies[?(@.Name =~ /.*"&C2&".*/i)]")

That should solve it :wink:

1 Like
#7

It’s almost working!

I tried with this formula :
=PARSE(W2,"$…Technologies[?(@.Name =~ /."&“WordPress”&"./i)]")

I have not data (instead my BuiltWith cell have a WordPress component)

But with this one :
=PARSE(W2,"$…Technologies[?(@.Name =~ /."&“WordPress”&"./i)]")

I have all the “WordPress” Name and “WordPress Plugins” Name

I need to only get the “WordPress”.
Do you know what should I do?

ps : I already tried this without sucess:
=PARSE(W2,"$…Technologies[?(@.Name =~ /.*"&“WordPress”&"./i)]")

#8

Hi @Copilot,

To filter out only those Technology objects that include the exact phrase match of “WordPress” (without the Grid, Plugins, etc.), you can try this formula:

=PARSE(B4,"$..Technologies[?(@.['Name']=='WordPress')]")

This should do it!

And another pro-tip :nerd_face:: If you would like to parse only a certain data object of the WordPress Technology objects, for example “Link”, you can use this formula:

=PARSE(B4,"$..Technologies[?(@.['Name']=='WordPress')].Link")

This will parse the Links of those Technologies that include only the name “WordPress”. Does that make sense?

There’s so many cool things you can do with this :star_struck: Let me know if you have any other questions!

1 Like
#9

Huge! thank you!

I just have one more question :slight_smile:

I have a column named “CMS TECH” in which I want to display the CMS tech of the web site (URL).
Can I with your formula print : “Wordpress” OR “PrestaShop” OR etc…

Something like that :
=PARSE(B4,"$…Technologies[?(@.[‘Name’]==OR(‘WordPress’,‘PrestaShop’)].Link")

The other way I found is to have multiple columns but less convenient

Thanks a lot for your amazing help Nadja !

#10

Hi @Copilot,

To use the OR condition for the CMS Tech, try this formula:

=PARSE(B4,"$…Technologies[?(@.[‘Name’]==‘PrestaShop’ || @.[‘Name’]==‘Wordpress’)].Link")

It should return {data} with the links in case of a match. Then you can just PARSE the value to a separate column (e.g =PARSE(G2,"[0]") )

Let me know if it helps :slight_smile:

1 Like
#11

Hi @henrique,

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

I tried but it’s not working I think it is because of “||” is an AND operator and in this case it’s need an OR operator, I think.

I tried to find the OR operator in the documentation but without success :confused:

Do you know which character to use for an OR?

#12

Hi @Copilot,

The OR operator should be “||”

Can you tell which error are you getting?

Here is the exact spreadsheet I have with the OR operator, working as expected.

A1: domain
B1: request
C1: parse
A2: dollskill.com
B2: =DOMAIN_TECH_STACK_BUILTWITH(A2)
C2: =PARSE(B2,"$…Technologies[?(@.[‘Name’]==‘Google Remarketing’||@.[‘Name’]==‘Wordpress’)]")

Here is a short video of the spreadsheet.

Hope it helps :slight_smile: Let me know in case it doesn’t and happy to jump on a quick call to see how we get it working.

1 Like
#13

It’s working perfectly!
Thank you very much!

It wasn’t working because of the “.Link” at the end of the formula :slight_smile:

This one works fine:
PARSE(B2,"$…Technologies[?(@.[‘Name’]==‘Google Remarketing’||@.[‘Name’]==‘Wordpress’)]")

1 Like
#14

Perfect @Copilot , happy to hear that! :muscle:

1 Like
#15

Hi Nadja,

this is no longer working, as it seems to be banned by IG/FB.
Is there a workaround?

BR,
Gabriel

#16

Hi @gabriel,

So sorry about that! The good news is that we’re already working on an Instagram integration :slight_smile: Please be patient with us—we’ll definitely let you know once the integration is out! :raised_hands:

2 Likes
#17

As i know there is no problem to automatically find out the number of followers based on the url, i guess any child would do that, the problem is with the returning url from different social network websites just like you mentioned above, and the formula is not always working, i mean somtimes it gives me every data, with the right value, but sometimes it just won’t work, and i don’t understand why. Someone told me that it might happen when the account you trying to monitor might have purchased followers for that certain social network, could you tell me, cand that be the truth? Or is it just me, maybe i haven’t done everything right.

#18

Hi Scott! Out of curiosity, are you using our Instagram integration? If so, which function is throwing you the error, and would you mind telling us the accounts that are giving you trouble? We’ll check out what’s going on :slight_smile:

#19

Hi, no i haven’t tried you instagram integration, will it make it easier? I will send you the accounts in couple of hours as soon as i reach my office and i will tell you all the other details.

#20

Perfect! Please do :slight_smile:

And yes, we’ve made a few things a lot easier with the integration so hopefully we get to the bottom of the issue you’re having ^^