Instagram adds option to schedule posts via new Graph API as old Platform API nears shutdown

Instagram is adding more features to the Graph API it debuted last year to prod businesses and developers to migrate away from its old API that is being shut down over the next two years.

Through Instagram’s Graph API, businesses will now be able to schedule posts, see public posts that mention or tag them and check out other business profiles, the Facebook-owned photo-and-video app announced on Tuesday.

The new features are meant to make it easier for businesses to manage their organic accounts on Instagram. However, there’s a catch. While any business with access to Instagram’s Graph API will be able to use it to view posts that mention and tag them or to see other businesses’ profiles (including their posts, bios, website links and follower counts), to schedule posts via the API a business will need to go through a vendor that’s a member of the Facebook Marketing Partner program.

The new features are also intended to encourage businesses to switch away from Instagram’s Platform API that Instagram is shutting down. That shutdown will happen in three phases, the first of which will begin around the end of July 2018. At that time, Instagram will deprecate the ability to use the Platform API to obtain follower lists and relationships between accounts and to comment on public posts, according to an Instagram spokesperson. It’s unclear what the next two phases will entail, but they will conclude with the Platform API being fully shut down in early 2020.

Unlike the Platform API that had been open to business and non-business accounts alike, the Graph API is only available to Instagram accounts that are connected to a Facebook Page and have been converted to Instagram’s version of Facebook’s Pages called business profiles that were introduced in May 2016.

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies.