# Instagram

> What Trackagoat tracks for Instagram Reels and posts, supported URL formats, and platform caveats.

## What's tracked

Add an Instagram account to any creator and Trackagoat tracks its **Reels and posts** the same way it tracks TikTok:

- **Views** (plays on Reels), likes, and comments per post
- **Follower count** and posting cadence for the account
- Automatic discovery of new posts about twice a day, like TikTok, with stats re-checked by post age on a schedule that slows down sooner than TikTok's ([update schedule](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/scraping.md))
- Comments, with sentiment and signals, on paid plans ([Comment Insights](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/comment-insights.md)): the newest comments (up to 15) with every stats check, and up to 100 of the most-liked comments once a post is a day old and has more than that

Reels are identified automatically and flagged as short-form; feed image posts and carousels are tracked as photo posts.

## Adding an Instagram account

On a creator, click **Add account** and paste either:

- A profile URL: `https://www.instagram.com/username/`
- A handle: `@username` or `username`

To track a specific post, paste its URL on the Videos page:

- Reel: `https://www.instagram.com/reel/{shortcode}/`
- Post: `https://www.instagram.com/p/{shortcode}/`

## Caveats

Instagram is stricter than TikTok about what it exposes publicly, so a few things differ:

- **Hidden likes.** When an account hides its like counts, Trackagoat keeps the last known value rather than showing zero.
- **No view counts on image posts.** Instagram doesn't expose play counts for non-video posts, so those show `0` views.
- **No share/save counts.** Instagram doesn't surface these publicly.
- **No comment replies.** We collect top-level comments only. Instagram's comment count includes replies, so the number of comments collected for a post usually stays a little below it.
- **Tracking Inbox view counts** update once a day while the post is under 30 days old. Include a post to keep its views updating after that.
- **Private accounts** can be added, but their posts can't be discovered or tracked until the account is public. They carry a **Private** badge so you can tell them apart from a creator who stopped posting.
- **Collab posts** count for every tracked account whose profile they appear on, whichever account published them.
- **Hashtags must be in the caption.** Hashtag tracking mode reads the caption only, so a creator who puts hashtags in the first comment won't match. Use Selective mode for those accounts.
- **Handles must match exactly.** An account that doesn't exist on Instagram (a typo, or a renamed profile) is flagged unreachable after a few attempts and you're notified.
- **Embeds.** Instagram posts link out to Instagram rather than embedding inline (Instagram's embed is login-gated and unreliable).

## Related

- [Creators and accounts](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/accounts.md)
- [Data freshness and scraping](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/scraping.md)

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Source: https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/instagram