Web Scrape Social Media Followers: A Step-by-Step Guide

Web Scraping for Social Media Followers

Web scraping for social media followers involves automatically extracting data about a user's followers from social media platforms. This process can be applied to various platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and more. The data collected can provide insights into user engagement, brand awareness, and audience demographics.

Automate your social media follower count extraction and save time with Bardeen. Perfect for digital marketers and social media analysts.

How to Scrape Instagram Follower Count

Scraping Instagram follower counts can be achieved using web scraping tools or APIs. One method involves using a dedicated Instagram Followers Count Scraper, which allows you to input one or more Instagram usernames to retrieve follower and following counts. This tool can be scheduled to run regularly, and the data can be exported in formats like JSON, XML, CSV, Excel, or HTML. Another approach is to use BeautifulSoup in Python, where you can request the Instagram page of a user and parse the follower count from the page's metadata.

Learn how to scrape a website without code and boost your social media analysis.

Automate Follower Count Extraction

Automating the extraction of follower counts can streamline the process of monitoring social media metrics. Tools like PhantomBuster and Octoparse allow for the automation of data collection from social media profiles. These tools can be configured to scrape follower counts at scheduled intervals, ensuring up-to-date data is always available.

Hubspot's Social Media Management Software are Time-saving tools to help you prioritize your social interactions — so you can connect with the people who matter most.

Web scraping the number of followers from social media platforms can be a manual and time-consuming task. However, with Bardeen, you can fully automate this process, making it efficient and scalable. Automating follower count extraction is particularly useful for digital marketers, social media analysts, and anyone interested in tracking social media metrics over time. For instance, tracking the growth of your followers can help gauge the effectiveness of your content strategy.

Here are some examples of how Bardeen's playbooks can be utilized for automating the extraction of follower counts and related data:

1. Save Instagram followers to Google Sheets if Bio contains specific word: This playbook automates the process of filtering and saving Instagram followers to Google Sheets based on specific keywords found in their bios, ideal for targeted marketing campaigns.
2. Get followers or followings from the currently opened Instagram followers or following page: Effortlessly gather follower data directly from an open Instagram page, streamlining market research and influencer outreach.
3. Save Instagram following / followers to Google Sheets: Directly extract and save Instagram follower or following counts into Google Sheets, simplifying the tracking and analysis of follower data.