Ig Audience Insights Agent Skill

Instagram Audience Insights

Turn real Instagram data into a read on what is working: which posts in your niche are traveling right now and why, and how any account (yours or a competitor's) actually performs. This is the read layer, so the skill sees real numbers instead of guessing.

One honest limit: Instagram caps and cookie-gates who liked or commented on someone else's post, so a liker or commenter roster is not reliably available for other accounts. The signal here is niche post performance + profile stats, which is what you can actually read on Instagram.

When to use

• "What is working in my niche / scan the #hashtag"
• "Pull the stats for this account / how big is this competitor"
• "What format is traveling under this hashtag right now"
• "Compare my follower count to this account"

Not for writing a caption (use ig-caption-writer) or planning a carousel (use ig-carousel-planner).

Setup (optional)

The read layer uses Apify (no login, no cookies). Get a free token at https://console.apify.com/account/integrations and set APIFY_TOKEN. No token? Paste the posts or profile stats you already have and the skill runs the same analysis on them.

Input

• A niche hashtag (with or without the #), a username (yours or a competitor's), or both
• Optional: the goal (niche pulse / competitor read / self benchmark)

Output

• Niche pulse - the top posts under a hashtag ranked by engagement, with the pattern behind the winners (hook shape, caption length, image vs carousel vs Reel, presence of a question or a specific number)
• Profile read - the stats for a handle: followers, post count, bio, category, verified and business flags
• Benchmark - your account against a competitor on follower count and post cadence, normalized so a small account's breakout is not buried under a big account's average
• Action list - what format to make more of, which accounts to watch, what to route to ig-caption-writer or ig-carousel-planner

Steps

• Pull the data. For a niche: lib.ApifyClient().fetch_niche_posts(hashtag, max_items=20). For a profile: fetch_profile(username). Falls back to pasted data if no token.
• Rank by engagement. Sort the niche posts by likes + comments. Normalize against the owner's reach where known so a mega-account's average does not crowd out a small account's breakout.
• Extract the pattern. For the top posts, name what they share: the hook shape (question, confession, list, data-point), the caption length, image vs carousel vs Reel, the presence of a specific number. That is the repeatable part.
• Read the profile. From fetch_profile, report followers, post count, bio, category, and whether it is a verified business account. Use it to benchmark, not to guess private engagement.
• Benchmark honestly. Compare handles on the stats Instagram exposes (followers, post count, cadence). Do not imply access to a liker or commenter list for accounts you do not own.
• Build the action list. Make-more-of (the winning format), watch (specific accounts), route drafts to ig-caption-writer / ig-carousel-planner.
• Deliver the report in the Output shape, with the raw ranked posts and profile stats attached.

What the read layer exposes

| Method | Returns |

|---|---|

| fetch_niche_posts(hashtag, max_items) | top posts under a hashtag: caption, likes, comments, owner, type, url |

| fetch_profile(username) | profile stats: username, followers, following, posts, bio, category, verified, business |

Hard rules

Global voice rules: see root SKILL.md Voice rules. Additional skill-specific rules:

• Be honest that Instagram hides who liked or commented on other accounts. This is niche discovery + profile stats, not a liker or engager roster. Do not imply otherwise.
• Normalize by follower count before calling a post a winner, or you extract "big account" effects, not "good post" effects.
• Never invent a post, a number, or a pattern. If a hashtag returns thin, say so and try an adjacent tag or pull known accounts.
• A pattern is only a pattern if it recurs across several top posts, not one.

Related skills

• ig-caption-writer - write more of what the niche data shows is working
• ig-carousel-planner - turn a winning format into a slide plan
• ig-hook-extractor - reverse-engineer the hook from a top-performing post
• ig-hashtag-strategist - size the hashtag set around the tags that are traveling
• ig-content-planner - feed the winning patterns into a weekly plan