Instagram Business Discovery API Pagination Token not working?

Question

I am trying to use Instagram Business Discovery API to get post statistics from a certain public page.

Take Bath and Body Works (https://www.instagram.com/bathandbodyworks) for example.

GET graph.facebook.com
   17895695668004550?fields=business_discovery.username(bathandbodyworks){followers_count,media_count,media{timestamp,like_count,comments_count}}

This will give me the following response:

{
"business_discovery": {
"followers_count": 3526159,
"media_count": 3536,
"media": {
  "data": [
    {
      "timestamp": "2018-05-16T20:00:54+0000",
      "like_count": 28925,
      "comments_count": 530,
      "id": "17917935010179826"
    },

    (24 posts data omitted...)

    "paging": {
    "cursors": {
      "after": "QVFIUlBNak5fNTc3eThl..." (a very long string)
    }
  }
}

Now, this only gives me the most recent 25 posts, which I believe is the limit per request set by Facebook.

What should I do if I want to load the next 25 posts?

In YouTube Data API there is also a limit per request of 50, but a "nextPageToken" is provided to load the next 50 post. I assume this is the same case here?

I also found in this Facebook API document that maybe I can add a cursor string like: &after=QVFIUlBNak5fNTc3eThl...,

but this doesn't work.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

The pagination with business_discovery is a bit different from Facebook pagination.

There's no next and previous url's.

You need to add, after cursor as this example:

https://graph.facebook.com/v2.12/xxxx?fields=business_discovery.username(jacqehoward){id,name,username,website,profile_picture_url,biography,followers_count,media_count,media.after(QVFIUlZA5aTR5NTE4Y24tNW90VGZAPTVBtb0NpOEFPTlNLeklmVTEtUDZAfVnE0YnBhUVNOQ3BDaktzNHJBTENhTmVYLUV2SGJPZAVAxZA09hQ2NhUGdnUGFjMTNn){id,caption,comments_count,like_count,media_type,media_url,owner,timestamp}}

Note:

media.after(after_cursor){media_fields}

And if you want to paginate through business_discovery to the end you must add after cursors until there's only response with previous cursor. This is the mark that you reached the first post.