Changes to HASHTAG tracking on December 5th 2018

The following article refers to changes made on December 5th 2018.

Instagram cut off access to certain parts of their API with regards to hashtags on the 11th December 2018. You are still able to search for and follow hashtags on Iconosquare, but we want to let you know about these historical changes!

Instagram Business users using a third-party tool can only ‘query’ a maximum of 30 unique hashtags within a rolling 7-day period. Let’s break that down into more understandable chunks:

What’s a query?

In the context of your Iconosquare account, a query refers to:

• Adding & following a hashtag in the My Feeds section
• Adding & following a hashtag in the Hashtags section

 Each of the above accounts for one hashtag query. 

What do you mean by ‘30 unique hashtags within a rolling 7 day period’?

You can make 30 (total) of the above queries on unique hashtags within each rolling 7-day period. Unique means that only different hashtags will count as an additional query. This means that if you add the hashtag #catsofinstagram to your Hashtag Tracker, and then go and search for it in the Advanced Media Search, this will only count as one query within your rolling 7-day period. You can search for the hashtag #catsofinstagram as many times as you like, with different filters, over a period of 7 days and it will only count as one query, meaning you have 29 different hashtag queries left to play with. 

In other words: Once you query a hashtag, it counts against the 30-hashtag limit for 7 days. Subsequent queries on the same hashtag within this time frame count against your limit, and does not reset its initial query 7 day timer.

How did it affect my favourite features on Iconosquare?

Hashtags section

• You are able to track a maximum of 25 hashtags per social profile. So if you are on a PRO plan, you are able to purchase an additional 22 hashtags; if you are on the ADVANCED plan you are able to purchase an additional 20.
• The graphs Global Growth and Geolocation on the Hashtag Tracking pages & Overview was removed.
• Each hashtag you track on the Hashtag Tracker accounts for one of your queries. So if you’re tracking 3 hashtags on one of your social profiles, you now have 27 left for those 7 days, and each rolling 7 days as long as you track them.

My Feeds

• Hashtag Tracking in Feeds was deactivated, so all the hashtags you tracked in Feeds were removed.
• You are now able to add Users to your regular Feeds, but you are only able to add up to 20 of those hashtags to the new single Hashtag Feed. You see a prompt asking you to do this, and they’ll be auto-saved for you to select from! (The Hashtag Feed is not counted towards your allowance of custom Feeds.)
• Hashtag Feeds only displays media that has been posted within the last 24 hours of you opening the Feed (the Feed refreshes itself every time it's newly accessed).