Instagram Account Research

Follow shared public skill rules in:

• postplus-shared public skill rules

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• evaluate creators or KOL/KOC candidates
• compare competitor Instagram accounts
• inspect a brand account's profile, output, and rough momentum
• build a shortlist of accounts worth deeper content analysis

Do not use this as the default first pass for open-ended creator discovery when the user cares about follower bands, topical fit, or audience fit inferred from actual content. In those cases, route to skills/20-research/instagram-creator-discovery/SKILL.md first.

Read these references before implementation:

• skills/20-research/instagram-references/actor-selection.md
• skills/20-research/instagram-references/normalized-schema.md
• skills/20-research/instagram-references/tool-contracts.md

Primary Hosted Collection Keys

• instagram-profiles
• instagram-posts

Recommended Workflow

1. collect a profile snapshot for each username
2. decide which accounts deserve post collection from the profile results
3. collect a small recent-post sample for shortlisted accounts only
4. normalize profile and post outputs
5. rank accounts by audience size, engagement proxy, posting cadence, and relevance
6. return a shortlist plus account notes

Run profile and post collection serially as one serial queue. Do not start instagram-profiles and instagram-posts in parallel, even if the user asks for both account profiles and recent content. Use the profile result to narrow the post batch before starting post collection. If a request would require a broad profile pass plus a broad post pass, stop before collection and ask the user to narrow the handle list or research theme.

Cost Discipline

Start with:

• 5-15 usernames
• 6-12 recent posts per account

Do not start with broad market scraping.

Public Skill Execution Contract

• keep shortlist briefs, actor inputs, raw datasets, normalized datasets, and ranking caches under <work-folder>/.postplus/instagram-account/
• keep only final user-facing summaries or shortlist exports outside .postplus/
• compile the request into a small username or URL batch before the expensive collection step
• if PostPlus Cloud service is unavailable, unauthorized, or returns a stable network error, stop immediately instead of switching to ad hoc shell glue

Good Output

Return:

• account snapshot table
• shortlist of strongest accounts
• likely creator / brand / store / meme-page type
• posting cadence estimate
• top recent content patterns
• risks:
  • inflated audience with weak engagement
  • inactive posting
  • weak topical fit

Handoff

Escalate to instagram-creator-discovery when:

• the user does not already have a handle list
• the user wants niche creators rather than known accounts
• the user wants content-first search

Escalate to instagram-content-benchmark when:

• the user wants to understand which specific posts or reels work
• the user wants reusable hook or format patterns

Escalate to instagram-audience-voice when:

• the user wants comment-driven pain points or objections