Dive Brief:
- Despite the benefits brands get from using Instagram and Pinterest, the lack of APIs from both platforms makes using them difficult and tedious for brands.
- Both platforms still require a very manual publishing process and can't have posts scheduled in advance, and no publishing or insights APIs also means that brands can't get software from companies like Salesforce, Expion, Spredfast, or Sprinklr to automate posts or measure its impact.
- Instagram has hinted that API access is on the way, though when it will arrive is still anyone's guess.
Dive Insight:
While API access may not be available on either platform yet, Advertising Age does note that Instagram has APIs available to developers who would like to pull content based on hashtags and locations, and that platform-scraping tools like Nitrogram are available. Still, that doesn't provide the information brands and agencies would prefer, such as the best time of day for certain content or what filter to use.
The sooner either of these platforms delivers an API and allows a third party to develop a tool for that sort of information, the better their own advertising efforts will be — and the more likely brands will be to stick around. Instagram may report 200 million active users and 1.6 billion likes per day, but we pity the poor social media managers manually posting these updates from their phones.
