Previous data about total Instagram followers

​@elizaveta Great suggestion! You're right,  seeing follower trends over time would be much more valuable than just a static count.

Currently, the Instagram API only provides current follower counts, but here's how you can build historical trends yourself:

1️⃣ Set up daily data pulls

• Schedule daily refreshes of your "Instagram Followers" metric

• Send to Google Sheets/BigQuery to store historical data

2️⃣ Create trend reports

• Connect Looker Studio to your stored data

• Build visualizations showing follower growth over time

I'll convert this to an idea request for our product team to consider.

Thanks for sharing 😊

Hi ​@Sahra 

Thank you for the reply! Can you please provide more details about how I can schedule daily refreshes?

Best regards,

Hi ​@elizaveta

Since the Instagram Insights API only stores story data for 24 hours, you'll need to proactively capture and store it for historical analysis.

One way to work around this is to automate this with Supermetrics for Google Sheets:

Step-by-Step guide:
 

1️⃣ Enable historical data collection

• Use the Combine new results with old settings in your query

• This preserves old data while appending fresh results daily

2️⃣ Set up daily refreshes

• Schedule your query to run automatically every 24 hours

• Choose a time before Instagram's data disappears (e.g., 23 hours after posting)

3️⃣ Visualise trends

• Connect your Google Sheet to Looker Studio

• Build dashboards with rolling 7/30/90-day views

See more here:

• Detailed walkthrough: Instagram Stories Data Workaround

Important Notes

• This works for organic Stories only (promoted content requires Facebook Ads connector)

• For follower trends, apply the same method to "Followers" metrics

Let me know if you'd like help tweaking your query!