Connect Instagram Business to Rig

    Sync organic Instagram performance: posts, reels and stories with their per-media insights, follower and demographic series, comments and tagged mentions. Paid Instagram activity comes through Meta Ads instead, which is why both are worth connecting.

    Requirements
    The Meta system user access token, and a Business or Creator account linked to a Facebook Page
    Time required
    5 mins, or 15 if you have not made the token yet

    Use the Meta Ads token

    Instagram Business authenticates with the same system user access token as Meta Ads. If you have already connected Meta Ads, you do not need a new one: reuse that token here.

    If you have not made it yet, follow the Meta Ads guide to create the app, the system user and the token, and make sure these four scopes are ticked alongside the Meta Ads ones:

    • instagram_basic
    • instagram_manage_insights
    • pages_show_list
    • pages_read_engagement

    The two pages_ scopes are not padding, and the next section explains why.

    Assign the Page, not just the account

    Assigning only the Instagram account will not work
    Rig reaches Instagram through the Instagram API with Facebook Login. That pipeline walks your Pages first and reads the linked Instagram business account off each one. If no Page is reachable, no Instagram account is found, even when the Instagram account itself is correctly assigned and every Instagram scope is granted. The Page is the route in.

    So under Business settings → Accounts, assign both:

    • Pages → your Page → Add people → the Rig system user → toggle on Insights. This one is required.
    • Instagram accounts → your Instagram account → Add people → Rig → toggle on Insights. Good practice, but not sufficient on its own.

    The Instagram account also has to be linked to that Page on the Instagram side. An unlinked Business account is invisible to this pipeline no matter what you assign.

    Leave the other Page toggles off. Creating content, deleting posts and managing comments are all write permissions, and a read-only sync needs none of them.

    Connect it in Rig

    1. In Rig, open Connections and go to Sources & actions.
    2. Search for Instagram, open Instagram Business and click Connect.
    3. System user access token: paste the same token you used for Meta Ads.
    4. Click Test, then Sync.

    What Rig pulls in

    • Profile and daily account insights
    • Follower and online-follower series, plus audience demographics
    • Media with per-item insights, including reels and the individual children of carousels
    • Live stories with story insights
    • Comments with their replies, and tagged-media mentions

    Instagram only exposes this data for Business and Creator accounts. Personal accounts return nothing, and that is a platform limit rather than a Rig one.

    The reason to hold it in a warehouse is history. Instagram's own app shows recent performance and little else, so per-media insights accumulating over time is what lets you rank content across any period, compare reels against carousels honestly, or check whether spikes in profile visits actually precede spikes in orders.

    Troubleshooting

    • No Instagram account found, but the token tests fine: the Page is not assigned, or the Instagram account is not linked to it. This is by far the most common cause, and assigning the Instagram account again will not fix it.
    • Meta Ads works and Instagram Business does not, on the same token: expected if you only assigned the ad account. Meta Ads needs the ad account, Instagram Business needs the Page.
    • You just assigned the Page and it still returns nothing: wait a few minutes and re-run the sync. New permissions take a little while to become visible to the API.
    • Paid Instagram numbers are missing: they are not part of this connector. Ads live in Meta Ads.

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