SocialScrape
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Instagram popular topic

Beta GET /v1/instagram/search/popular

GET /v1/instagram/search/popular

Explore a topic through Instagram's public Popular search: the reels it curates for a keyword, about 50 to 70 over 5 or 6 pages (health and finance terms are thin; some single words have none). Rows carry the caption, author, time and duration; Instagram sends no counts here, so every count in stats is null. No parent. Pass the cursor back with the same query.

  • Cost: 1 credit
  • Status: Beta. Built and tested against recorded responses; the shape may still gain fields.
  • Cache: Results are kept up to 30 days; send max_age_days to reuse them for free.
  • Timeout: A request still running after about 25 seconds answers 202 with a job to poll (Batch and jobs).

Parameters#

NameTypeRequiredDescription
querystringyesThe Popular topic to look up. Also accepted as keyword, q.

Every request also accepts:

  • cursor: the cursor from the previous page (Pagination).
  • trim: true for a smaller response without null fields and extra.
  • raw: true to also get the platform's original object as raw.
  • max_age_days: accept a cached result up to this many days old, for 0 credits (Caching).

Example request#

Set your key in the environment first (see Authentication).

curl
curl -G "https://api.socialscrape.io/v1/instagram/search/popular" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=basketball"
Python
import os
import requests

params = {
    "query": "basketball",
}
res = requests.get(
    "https://api.socialscrape.io/v1/instagram/search/popular",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY"]},
    params=params,
)
body = res.json()

if body["ok"]:
    print(body["data"])
else:
    print(body["error"]["code"], body["error"]["message"])
TypeScript
const url = new URL("https://api.socialscrape.io/v1/instagram/search/popular");
url.search = new URLSearchParams({
  "query": "basketball"
}).toString();
const res = await fetch(url, {
  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY! },
});
const body = await res.json();

if (body.ok) {
  console.log(body.data);
} else {
  console.error(body.error.code, body.error.message);
}
n8n
{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "name": "SocialScrape Instagram popular topic",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",
      "typeVersion": 4.2,
      "position": [
        0,
        0
      ],
      "parameters": {
        "method": "GET",
        "url": "https://api.socialscrape.io/v1/instagram/search/popular",
        "sendQuery": true,
        "queryParameters": {
          "parameters": [
            {
              "name": "query",
              "value": "basketball"
            }
          ]
        },
        "sendHeaders": true,
        "headerParameters": {
          "parameters": [
            {
              "name": "x-api-key",
              "value": "={{ $env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY }}"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "connections": {}
}

Example response#

This is a sample from a recorded response, lists and long text are shortened. Status 200.

{
  "ok": true,
  "credits_charged": 1,
  "credits_remaining": 4999,
  "cached": false,
  "cached_at": null,
  "request_id": "req_2b0e9f68e817acb97b5f70dd",
  "data": {
    "object": "list",
    "items": [
      {
        "object": "post",
        "platform": "instagram",
        "id": "DPhCDu_jj2l",
        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPhCDu_jj2l/",
        "type": "reel",
        "author": {
          "id": null,
          "handle": "woahhelijah",
          "name": null,
          "url": "https://www.instagram.com/woahhelijah/",
          "avatar_url": null,
          "verified": null
        },
        "title": null,
        "text": "These moves will make you SHIFTY. 🤝🎒 #basketball #sports #athlete #nba #hooper #trending #reels #viral #explore #explorepage",
        "published_at": "2025-10-07T17:18:32Z",
        "duration_seconds": 12.0,
        "language": null,
        "hashtags": [
          "basketball",
          "sports",
          "athlete"
        ],
        "mentions": [],
        "stats": {
          "views": null,
          "likes": null,
          "comments": null,
          "shares": null,
          "saves": null,
          "dislikes": null
        },
        "media": {
          "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-ord5-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/561460207_17965312502981287_577210961086174914_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0xJUFMuYmVzdF9pbWFnZV91cmxnZW4uQzMifQ%3D%3D&_n...",
          "video_url": null,
          "audio_url": null,
          "image_urls": null,
          "width": null,
          "height": null
        },
        "song": null,
        "location": null,
        "is_pinned": null,
        "is_sponsored": null,
        "extra": null
      },
      {
        "object": "post",
        "platform": "instagram",
        "id": "DEM7G6VIqeO",
        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEM7G6VIqeO/",
        "type": "reel",
        "author": {
          "id": null,
          "handle": "bbfactory.aep",
          "name": null,
          "url": "https://www.instagram.com/bbfactory.aep/",
          "avatar_url": null,
          "verified": null
        },
        "title": null,
        "text": "Show me Magic doing this\n\n#basketball #nba #stephencuury",
        "published_at": "2024-12-30T12:07:39Z",
        "duration_seconds": 13.0,
        "language": null,
        "hashtags": [
          "basketball",
          "nba",
          "stephencuury"
        ],
        "mentions": [],
        "stats": {
          "views": null,
          "likes": null,
          "comments": null,
          "shares": null,
          "saves": null,
          "dislikes": null
        },
        "media": {
          "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-ord5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/471785891_17916571812023081_2244094718618870826_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0xJUFMuYmVzdF9pbWFnZV91cmxnZW4uQzMifQ%3D%3D&_...",
          "video_url": null,
          "audio_url": null,
          "image_urls": null,
          "width": null,
          "height": null
        },
        "song": null,
        "location": null,
        "is_pinned": null,
        "is_sponsored": null,
        "extra": null
      }
    ],
    "cursor": "cAQHTUjoLu1pmfAm4o6Nckd8yoJk9KOmUL4JdHAAlh_morbFU4OaUwW7B7GJN9vF5fTD9",
    "has_more": true,
    "parent": null
  },
  "cursor": "cAQHTUjoLu1pmfAm4o6Nckd8yoJk9KOmUL4JdHAAlh_morbFU4OaUwW7B7GJN9vF5fTD9",
  "has_more": true
}

Response#

A list of Post objects in data.items, with data.cursor and data.has_more.

See Data models for every field. The envelope around data is described in Responses.

Errors#

Failures are free: credits_charged is 0. Branch on error.code, never on the message.

CodeHTTPRetryMeaning
invalid_params400noA parameter is missing, unknown or has the wrong type.
not_found404noThe platform says this profile, post or item does not exist.

Every request can also fail with the account and platform errors listed on the Errors page.