External Scraping for Instagram

Aside from the tagname scraping method, we have come up with an alternative method for your scraping needs. This time, we’ll need the help of an external scraping service called HikerAPI.

What is HikerAPI?

It is an API, or Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to communicate and share data. In essence, it’s a set of rules and specifications that define how different software components can interact with each other.

This enables developers to use the API to retrieve a wide range of Instagram features, including user profiles, media, followers, hashtags, locations, and stories.

How can I use it in SU Social?

You may sign up for your HikerAPI account via https://hikerapi.com/

Click on Register and follow the necessary steps. If you already have a HikerAPI account, you may click on Login instead.

Once you have signed up/logged in, go to the Billing tab so you can top up. It cannot work if there’s a $0 balance on the account.

Select your preferred payment method and enter the amount you’d like to top up, and click Pay.

Once you have enough credits on the HikerAPI account, go to the Token tab and click on Create a token.

Copy the API key (access key).

Paste into the respective field in the Settings > Connectivity tab.

Don’t forget to enable using the external scrape API option from Social Profiles > Instagram Account > Show Advanced Profiles Settings.

Here are more details on the sub-options:

• Stop using external scraping API for the current day when exceeding a certain API calls number – this option will make SU Social fallback to using api/eb scraping when external scraping reaches the thresholds you’ve set. The limits will reset after a day, and the HikerAPI can be used again.
  • Delay the account instead fallback to using normal scraping when limits reached – the account status will be changed to delayed. If the hourly limit is reached, the delay will last until the next hour; if the daily limit is reached, the delay will last until the next day.
• Do not scrape user profile data when using external API – the account will use api/eb scraping when scraping profile data as opposed to using HikerAPI.
• Do not fallback to using API when external API is down or has issues – this is to ensure that the account will not perform API calls through the Instagram private API when HikerAPI is not available.
• Skip scraping if main account proxy is down – use this option if you don’t want to perform HikerAPI scraping if the main account’s proxy is having issues.

Do I still need IG scraper accounts?

Yes, you still need to add a few IG scrapers so that they can get the data that HikerAPI cannot get. If the HikerAPI can handle all the API calls, then no API call will be executed via the scraper account. But if HikerAPI wasn’t able to execute some API calls, then they will be executed via the scraper account.

How will I know if external scraping was used?

You may Export Most Recent Successful API Calls under Social Profiles > Actions on Selected Profiles. The API calls with the External prefix on them were performed by HikerAPI.

Conclusion

Using HikerAPI in SU Social for scraping saves developers the time and effort of building their own data retrieval systems. It also ensures that the data is accurate and up-to-date, as the API provider manages the underlying data source, and this also reduces the API call load on your IG Scraper accounts.