Instagram Reels Search
Instagram Reels are public short-form videos with captions, creator identity, media, publication times, source product types, and visible engagement. These content and performance signals support topic monitoring, query-specific research, creator mapping, and comparative review.
Features
- Text-query Reel discoveryFind public Reels for one meaningful search phrase without starting from a known profile, hashtag, audio ID, or content URL.
- Publication window controlRestrict discovery to the last hour, day, week, month, or year when the task needs a defined recency range.
- Content and creator recordsReceive Reel identity, canonical URLs, captions, author details, media references, publication times, and visible engagement in one shape.
- Bounded, deduplicated collectionSet each task from 20 through 2,000 records while stable Reel identifiers remove duplicates and each saved item retains its originating query.
Parameters
| Parameters | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
query | Required | Required non-empty text used to search the current public Instagram Reel surface. |
results_limit | Optional | Maximum records requested for the query; defaults to 100 and accepts integers from 20 through 2,000. |
published_within | Optional | Optional publication window: hour, day, week, month, or year. |
How to Use
Submit a Reel search as an asynchronous task, poll its task ID, then read normalized records with cursor pagination.
- Prepare a non-empty text query and choose an optional publication window; set results_limit from 20 through 2,000.
- POST query with optional results_limit and published_within fields to /v1/instagram/reels-search.
- Poll /v1/tasks/{task_id} until the status is succeeded or failed.
- Read data.results.items from /v1/tasks/{task_id}?limit=50 and follow results.next_cursor while results.has_more is true.
curl -X POST "https://api.socq.ai/v1/instagram/reels-search" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SOCQ_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"query\":\"$INSTAGRAM_REELS_QUERY\",\"results_limit\":20,\"published_within\":\"week\"}"
# Poll GET /v1/tasks/{task_id}, then read data.results.items and follow results.next_cursor.Best Use Cases
- Query-specific Reel datasets: Combine Reel IDs, URLs, captions, media, authors, and extra.search_query into a traceable collection for one topic.
- Recent topic monitoring: Use a publication window with created_at and visible engagement to review recently surfaced Reels for a recurring query.
- Creator discovery within a topic: Use normalized author IDs, usernames, names, and avatars to map creators represented in the matching Reel set.
- Content format comparison: Compare captions, media metadata, source product types, and visible metrics across Reels returned for the same query.
Pro Tips
- Use a focused, non-whitespace query phrase so the task starts with a meaningful lookup term after input trimming.
- Keep query, published_within, and results_limit consistent when comparing recurring runs because the current public search surface can change.
- Retain extra.search_query and stable Reel IDs when joining result pages or multiple tasks so query provenance and deduplication remain explicit.
- Treat captions, creator fields, media, timestamps, product types, and visible counters as nullable in downstream code.
Related APIs
Use these APIs when you need a different type of public Instagram data.
- Instagram Followers Count API — Retrieve public profile identity and visible follower, following, and post counts.
- Instagram Posts API — Collect public posts, media, hashtags, mentions, timestamps, and engagement by username.
- Instagram Reels API — Collect public Reels, media, audio, hashtags, mentions, and engagement by username.
- Instagram Search API — Search public profiles by keyword or handle with identity and visible account signals.
- Instagram Comments API — Collect public comments, authors, timestamps, likes, and replies from post URLs.
- Instagram Profiles API — Retrieve public profile identity, biographies, links, account flags, categories, and visible counts by username.
- Instagram Followers List API — Collect public follower profile records with source-account and relationship context.
- Instagram Following List API — Collect public profiles followed by Instagram accounts with identity, relationship context, and visible account counts.
- Instagram Hashtag Posts API — Discover public posts by hashtag with source-tag context, media, creators, timestamps, and visible engagement.
- Instagram Tagged Posts API — Collect public posts that tag selected profiles with authors, media, mentions, tagged-user context, and engagement.
- Instagram Transcript API — Extract transcript text, language, format, source URLs, and shortcodes from public post or Reel URLs.
- Instagram Audio Reels API — Collect public Reels by known numeric audio ID with captions, creators, media, timestamps, visible engagement, and source-audio context.
- Instagram Highlight Items API — Retrieve saved public Story items from known highlight IDs with text, author identity, media, timestamps, visible metrics, and source context.
- Instagram Post Info API — Look up known public post, Reel, or legacy IGTV URLs with captions, author identity, media, timestamps, visible engagement, and input context.
- Instagram Story Highlights API — List public Story Highlight containers by username with titles, owner context, media counts, and reusable highlight IDs.
- Instagram Trending Reels API — Capture the current public Reel set from the trending feed with captions, creators, media, timestamps, and visible engagement.
Combine Instagram data with public data from other supported social platforms.